Bobby Scores dropped by the McDonald's on Main Street in the Town of Poughkeepsie on Monday morning to have it out with Antonia Santiago, who has been protesting Scores' towing business and the McDonald's every day for the last two weeks.
Santiago told Spectrum News that on July 17th, her daughter parked Santiago's Jeep Grand Cherokee in the McDonald's parking lot, went to the convenience store next door, and then back to McDonald's for french fries.
Santiago said, within minutes, the jeep's windshield was blocked with a barnacle -- a booting device that suctions to the windshield, covering it, placed there by Bobby's Auto Repair and Towing, Scores' business.
Barnacles have instructions on them, providing a phone number to call to pay the $275 fee to have them removed. Since Santiago's daughter did not have the $275 needed to free the barnacle, Scores impounded the jeep and still has it at his facility on Smith Street.
"All she has to do it come pay her bill," Scores said while right next to Santiago. "Nobody's holding her car. The police are involved. Nobody is holding her car. She has to pay for it, come get it, and then she's more than welcome to take us to court."
Santiago said she is being charged the $275 to remove the barnacle, $85 for the tow, $900 to replace the barnacle that was damaged by a friend of Santiago's daughter who tried to remove it, and $50 for each additional day the jeep is impounded.
Santiago interjected.
"Then, why did you tell me McDonald's told you to tow my car?," she asked.
Scores fired back.
"After the barnacle was put on your car, you need to move your car," he explained. "The people who were driving your car had no money. Therefore, McDonald's said we needed to remove the car because it was taking up parking spaces."
"Why did you boot my car [in the first place]?" Santiago asked.
"Ma'am!," Scores said with irritation. "We're contracted to tow anybody or boot anybody who parks on this property and walks off it. That's our contract."
Scores told Spectrum News his drivers are not towing cars whose drivers patronize McDonald's before leaving the property, by foot, to another business.
"Once you park the car there and you leave the property, you are now trespassing," he said. "If you went into McDonald's first and left the property and let somebody [inside McDonald's] know, you're good…Nobody did that in this situation, nor the other situations."
For how long?
"It doesn't matter. There's no time period," Scores answered.
Santiago found the policy arbitrary.
So did at least five passerby, who pulled their cars over to about dealing with McDonald's and Bobby's Towing.
Santiago has also found a supporter in Poughkeepsie Town Supervisor Jon Baisley, though Baisley said the town does not currently have the power to intervene.
"I personally don't like him. I don't like his tactics," Baisley said. "But there's not much I can do right now to help her, because we don't have an ordinance in place."
The ordinance he mentioned would be modeled after one recently passed in the City of Poughkeepsie. The city's ordinance requires tow truck drivers to allow for a 20-minute grace period before booting or towing a vehicle.
Baisley said he hopes to have an ordinance in place within a month or two.
He also said he met with both Scores and the McDonald's franchise owner JC Wong, asking them to have mercy on Santiago to strike a deal or to "just let it go."
Both Scores and Wong are holding their ground, and offering no compromise. When Wong spoke with Spectrum News, he put some distance between himself and Bobby's Towing.
"Here, it seems we're the perpetrators, which we are not," Wong said when reached by phone Monday afternoon. "People come and they park here for a long time while they do their 'deals.' This lady is making a big deal of this because she got caught, you know, going next door. We have nothing to do with Bobby towing. He approached us and we gave him the 'OK' that he can do his job. Basically he is getting people who are breaking the [trespassing] ordinance."
Scores said that if the Poughkeepsie Town Board passes an ordinance requiring a grace period, his and other businesses will contest the ordinance in court, because "it's permitting people to trespass and it will never last."
Even though her feet are swollen from several hours-long daily one-woman protests, Santiago plans to continue demonstrate to warn customers about the aggressive towing policy.
"I've saved at least 20 people from getting booted today," she said with a smile.