City moves to yank company's towing license for ordinance violations

Indianapolis is making moves to yank a towing license for the first time since a new ordinance went into effect.

City officials have gotten 28 complaints since Aug. 28 against Interstate/Delaware and South Towing.  The complaints are for various elements of the ordinance: inadequate signage, towing without the proper "agent" authorization, overcharging and other questionable practices. Indiana Avenue downtown is the hot spot. The city is getting a lot of complaints in that concentrated area.

"We started to notice a pattern. We started to notice a wide variety of violations of the ordinance. We believe that Interstate Towing is engaging in predatory towing practices," said Adam Collins with Code Enforcement.

Interstate/Delaware and South Towing is a city-contracted towing company. Fox59 found in a previous investigation back in October that Interstate/Delaware and South Towing was charging people towed from accident scenes $175 instead of the $125 that was listed on their bid for the city’s contract.


Collins said they have given Interstate/Delaware and South multiple warnings to clean up their act.

"With Interstate Towing we've had more than one conversation about different lots and practices that were going on and things that needed to be remedied. They chose not to remedy those deficiencies so we were forced to move ahead."

Interstate/Delaware and South Towing will have a hearing on Jan. 10 about these issues. City officials said previous hearings of this nature have resulted in city licenses being revoked.