Sanchez challenges NYPD on unlicensed towing industry and sufficiency

So when we're talking about sufficiency, there is a rampant and growing unlicensed towing industry.

Gotham has found that there are 700 unlicensed tow trucks in the city.

Would you agree that the size of this illegal fleet suggests that capacity isn't where it needs to be?

We don't handle that in the NYPD.

That doesn't fall under our...

Yeah, we don't do the licensing of tow companies.

What I will say is what Chief Obey said, which is that when a summons is written, the vehicle needs to be towed.

In those circumstances, we're able to tow the vehicle.

We would love to be able to replace that Manhattan facility.

It's something we're working hard to do, but it presents its challenges, some of which are very obvious.

So if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that the towing that we need in the borough, all of the cars that need to be towed that have, you know, kind of just sat there for time, we don't need to do anything about them.

I don't know if you want to speak to something specifically about.

One of the biggest issues that all New Yorkers complain about, and I think the chair also brought it up, was that we just have cars that need to be towed, but they never seem like they are towed.

And now we're hearing that we have the complete capacity.

And I know when I'm dealing with trucks that need to be towed and I'm calling my PD station, I'm told that we don't have the sufficient capacity to tow all of these vehicles, to do all of this work.

So I'm just confused on.

What is sufficient?

Like what is sufficient, the number of cars that we have in the tow pounds, is sufficient the number of cars that we actually need to be towing?

What is sufficiency to the agency?

So two things I'll say.

First, we'll come visit you and take a look.

We'll walk through your district just to get a sense of what's happening there, and we'll help you with some towing issues.

The second thing is we don't tow just to tow.

We tow for violations for the most part.

So I talked about ghost plate enforcement.

Our tow operators will go out there, respond to community complaints.

And then we prioritize towing.

If you have a vehicle that's parked in front of a fire hydrant, that needs to go, rather than towing a vehicle that's parked in front of a expired meter.

So we prioritize it, but we don't tow just to tow.

We also can't tow our way out of the towing problem.

But we can certainly meet with you and we'll visit your district and work with you.

Thank you.

I would appreciate that.

I want to move on to...

Wait.

You have 40 seconds.

Okay.

I want to move on quickly.

I will need round two.