Last Saturday, I experienced the wrath of the Dewey Beach parking Nazis. I am a handyman contractor who has worked in the Rehoboth Beach area for 14 years now. I was contracted by one of the local real estate companies to install a garbage disposal in a condo in the Rainbow Cove Condo complex off Dagsworthy Avenue. The condo in question was in a building between the two main buildings, and was off street.
Having a Town of Dewey parking permit, which I paid $150 for, I parked between two buildings in an area which was not designated as an owner parking spot. I was inside the building for approximately half an hour, and upon returning to my white Chevrolet work van with extension ladders on top, I discovered it was gone.
I was advised by the Dewey Beach Police Dept. that it had been towed by Coastal Towing, which I am aware, does not have the best reputation when it comes to customer service. Luckily I have relatives in the area who had to drop what they were doing on a Saturday to come pick me up.
I went to the Coastal Towing impound lot and had to wait there for about 20 minutes while the tow driver returned. The tow driver informed me that he was called by someone at the complex, which I suspected was a lie, and he had absolutely no choice but to tow my van, even though he admitted he knew I was probably doing work inside of one of the Rainbow Cove Condos. Now I guess if I had been driving an ambulance or a police car, he would have had no choice but to tow them as well.
As a retired Delaware State Police trooper myself, with 20 years experience, whenever I had the benefit of time to assess a situation, 1 usually made the right decision. This individual obviously did not take that time, and thus made a poor decision.
But then again, it’s all about the money.
Anyway, it cost me $200 to get my work van out of impound. I realize that this complex is managed by Wilgus Property Management, and they have a no-tolerance parking policy. However 1 find it difficult to believe that the condo owners would want them to tow service people out of the lot when they are there trying to help them out. I made several attempts to contact a representative at Wilgus Property Management in Lewes to discuss this matter, but they refused to return my calls.
I would recommend to other contractors and service people that they refuse to provide services to Rainbow Cove Condos, that is unless they want to park their vehicles at the Park & Ride and take a shuttle there. I have also spoken to many other people, including other contractors, who have had similar experiences with Coastal Towing. In addition, I saw a Facebook post in which Coastal Towing tried to remove a woman’s car from M&T Bank, and when she confronted them, the driver forced her to pay him $40 in lieu of towing her car. Now correct me if I am wrong, but is that not extortion?
Is this really how we want our resort town to be defined? I have made inquiries to determine the legality of these practices.
Mark A. Winstead
M.A. Winstead Contracting LLC
Lewes
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