Tampabay: Car boot grinds mayor's gears

TAMPA -- After a late seafood dinner with friends at a posh Ybor restaurant, the city's most powerful man walked outside to find his immense, shiny black Lincoln Town Car with a metal boot on the wheel.

It's not the sort of thing that typically happens to Mayor Dick Greco, who keeps a police badge in the windshield and parks freely on city streets. But this was a private lot. He hadn't put his $3 in the slot. And the boot man, Mike Donovan, demanded $70 before Greco could go home.

"I just went and got a couple of police officers and said, "Y'all deal with this guy,' " Greco said of the incident several weeks ago.

The boot came off.

But instead of going home, the mayor sat in his liberated city-owned Lincoln and spied. He wanted to know how many other cars fell prey to the boot man.

"I was so upset, for other people, I went back until 3 a.m. and watched him doing it over and over and over," Greco said. "I watched this guy take money from one guy after another."

The upshot: Greco has asked the city attorney's office to investigate how to tighten restrictions on car-booters, particularly in requiring them to post big, clear signs. Greco said he didn't see an attendant when he parked in the 1704 N 17th St. lot, and figured he would pay when he left.

While signs there warn that "violators will be immobilized or towed at owner's expense," Greco said they're hard to see as one enters, especially at night, as is the money box. Greco thinks they're deliberately unclear, allowing the boot men to profit by holding cars hostage.

Ian McGeehan, who leases the lot and runs a company called Parking Enforcement, said his warning signs are plenty big, plenty clear. "If the mayor can't see that sign, he shouldn't be driving a car," said McGeehan, 35. "Because it's as big as a car."

McGeehan, who hires car-booter Mike Donovan to monitor three parking lots he runs in the city, said he regrets that Donovan released Greco's car for free.

He likes the mayor. Would vote for him, in fact. But he doesn't find the threatened crack-down very gracious. "At this point, I hope he comes down there and parks there tonight," McGeehan said. "You know what? I wouldn't boot him. I would tow him."

McGeehan said he has been in the parking business in Ybor for 10 years. Car-booting is a kindness to scofflaws, he said, since the alternative is towing. "We have every right to be there, and we can use that piece of property for whatever lawful purpose we want to," he said.

Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin said Parking Enforcement was within its rights to boot the mayor's car, since the company leases the lot.

So, did Greco get special treatment when police intervened on his behalf?

Not at all, Durkin said: Officers were acting in their capacity as "mediators" when they persuaded Donovan to remove the boot, and they did the same for a non-official couple at the lot in recent weeks. Durkin did not have the couple's names.

In threating the crack-down, Greco said it's not himself he's concerned about. "I have a police vehicle. I can park it anywhere I want. I wouldn't park it in a private lot worrying about three dollars."

The mayor said the city has received a stream of complaints about car-booters at the 17th street lot, and he just doesn't want visitors to have the ugly experience he had. He said he didn't know it was a problem until it happened to him.

"He just booted the wrong car," Greco said. "I realized he was doing it to all these people."

McGeehan dares people to look him in the eye and say they missed his signs, which he claims are bigger than those at competing lots. He also insists the vast majority of his revenue comes from people paying for their parking spaces, not boot-removal fees.

"I'm appalled at the reaction of a city official when he was in the wrong," he said. "If he wants to take it to the next level, I hope he has the gloves on."

- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.

-- Christopher Goffard can be reached at (813) 226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com

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