Staten Island, NY – Whenever a city permit for a towing rights changes hands, lawsuits and allegations of impropriety often follow.
That’s now the case on Staten Island, after Staten Island Towing lost its permit for the borough’s highways to Knights Collision Experts of Brooklyn.
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With $1.5 million a year and likely the fate of its business at stake, Staten Island Towing has sued the city to keep the permit, charging that the NYPD didn’t do a good enough job vetting Knights, whose owner was convicted in a federal fraud case in 1991.
Likewise, it turns out that Staten Island Towing’s record is not without blemishes — the Port Authority yanked the firm’s contract to tow from the borough’s bridges in December, accusing the company of overcharging customers, according to court records.
Staten Island Towing president Andrew Leider said. A city towing permit means big business for whichever company gets one — Leider estimates that in exchange for paying a set rate of about $12,000 a quarter for the permit, his company tows about 6,000 vehicles a year from the Island’s highways. That number includes commercial trucks, which can bring thousands of dollars in revenue for a single job.
“We get a few big ones every year,” he said. One job in 1998, a tanker truck hauling hydrochloric acid that split open on the Staten Island Expressway, brought the company $30,000, according to Leider. [S.I. Advance]
its strange how a metal object with a point on it was in the middle of a resticted section that this towing company covers–and by the way one person that changes tires is totally incompatent–damage was done to the bumper–wake up nyc–get rid of restricted areas
should of been put out of business long time ago they charged me $500 just to tow my truck of the Staten island xpway bunch of thieves , i dont know if the new 1 will be better