Valets Continue Abusing Public Parking
I haven’t written about valets in a while but a new comment came in recently on a post from January 2007. Here is an excerpt
Obviously those of you posting in attack of the valet’s have never been on the other side of things, never actually had to work for your living through college or whatever it may be. If you have ever worked as a valet, especially at Lucas Park Grille, that the amount of space that they have to work with is hardly enough for safely operating a valet service on a busy night.
Regarding parking in “non designated valet spots”, valets have just as much of a right to park their cars on the street as you do. Not to mention, especially on a weeknight when you are low manned, or even the only one working, response time is key. Therefore the most effecient solution is to park on close street parking… running to the lot 20 or 30 times when it is over a block away, gets quite old, especially when people don’t realize that the valets don’t see any of the money from the parking charge and don’t tip us. Did I mention that we work almost exclusively for tips?
Where to begin? For me I worked at a Toys R Us to get through college. Five Christmas seasons at a toy store is no picnic, that Cabbage Patch craze was maddening. We all do crappy low wage jobs to get through college — at least those of us that are lucky enough to get to go to college.
But here a valet is saying it is unsafe to operate valet service unless they have all the spaces for their own use, as was the case a couple of years ago. But basically the valet doesn’t want to do their job and go to the private lot numerous times per evening. Well, too bad.
But really the valets want to create an artificial shortage of parking so patrons are forced to use their service. If someone can just park on the street within the block of their destination why fork over $3 plus a tip? So the valets want to take away that option — it forces people to use the valet and it saves them a trip to their private lot by parking your car in a public space on the street.
7/25/08 -Valets for the club Lure at Washington & Tucker cone off public parking spaces on both sides of the street.
The valet waits in front of Lure with more cones ready to take spaces as people leave them. 
7/26/08 - Lucas Park Grille's valet was parking cars anywhere they'd fit and simply turning on the flashers. Above two cars are parked on 13th blocking the fire hydrant - but they have their flashers on so that makes it OK? Each of these owners paid $3 to have their cars illegally parked! 
This Hyundai was parked just barely out of the crosswalk. On Monday this week I noticed around 8pm that the Lucas Park Grille valets had coned off two free public spaces across the street from the restaurant. I’m not sure what is worse, that the city lets these guys abuse the public right away or that folks hand over money to these guys for them to just park the car in a coned off space within sight of the destination.
I can see valet use when an actual shortage of parking exists but when they create the shortage just to make a buck we have a problem.
Said it before, and I’ll say it again: swipe the cones and throw them in the nearest dumpster. I would certainly be pissed off if I came back from my dining experience with a City parking violation slip w/envelope stuck under my wiper blade. Regarding the cones placed in public spaces, it would not be too difficult to park aside the spot, get out of the car, toss the cones across the sidewalk, get back into the car and park it in the now vacant space. It’s just that simple.
I agree. If they aren’t placed there by the police, you can easily move the cone. I understand this might be more trouble than its worth for Steve, but anybody else walking down the street should toss the cones everytime they see them.
I was told by the valet for Wasabi that after 6pm they are allowed to block off certain parts of the sidewalk near the restaurant because they rent them from the city, or something. Does anyone know if that is legit?
PS: you should blur out that dude’s license plate. License plate numbers are considered Personally Identifiable Information (Google it).
License plates are handed out specifically so vehicles can be identified. It may be PII, but it’s certainly not private! What are you saying, Digitizdat, that we don’t need to have license plates because some criminal may decide to ask the state who owns the vehicle (it is public information, after all)?
As for the main topic – abuses will continue to happen without viable and consistent enforcement. Laws aren’t worth the paper they’re written on if no one is held accountable for violating them!
I’m just saying it’s considered PII… I don’t know the legal ramifications of posting someone else’s license plate number. I’m not a lawyer, just trying to be friendly.
Your valet friend said:
“Regarding parking in ‘non designated valet spots’, valets have just as much of a right to park their cars on the street as you do.”
I believe that is quite wrong. As a condition of their license don’t they accept terms that they are only to use their rented spaces, not to leave cars parked in that designated space and to only use private lots for parking the valeted cars? Beside the agreed terms, how fair is it to put a cone in every public spot until they need it? I would be more open to that line of reasoning if they hadn’t marked the spot as unusable for others and thus prevented it from being “public”.
People whining about their crappy summer/college jobs is to be expected. Why I once… never mind. Whine as they like, I expect them to do their job as defined and to valet park my car in a safe designated lot. Parking a car illegally is outrageous and there should honestly be very stiff penalties for the VALET COMPANY whose employees do this.
Last thought: you should blur the license plate number. The premise of the picture was that a valet parked the car illegally NOT the owner. The only person whose Personally Identifiable Information is exposed here is an innocent party.
Off topic small beef, but the premise is the same–
A laundromat in Soulard, just south of the market on 8th?, puts out cones that say ‘no ballgame parking’. I like small businesses and such, but it does rub me the wrong way that the laundromat owner feels that s/he can choose what are ‘valid’ uses of the parking spaces.
What’s with this PII blowback? You have to pay the state to get someone’s name and address from their license number, but it IS public information – you gotta want to get it to go to the effort of getting it. But it’s not like our Social Security numbers, which we are encouraged to keep private (for good reason). License numbers are issued so that vehicles and their owners can be identified for any number of reasons. Don’t want to be identified? Take a taxi, ride a bike, or like “old” Steve, ride a scooter. But if you’re going to drive, more and more people are going to be watching more and more of your vehicle’s moves, be they security cameras at private businesses or red light cameras all around the area or that little biddy up the street. And if you (or your vehicle) isn’t doing something illegal and/or stupid, who cares? It’s just TMI, baby. But if you do something stupid (or someone you entrusted your vehicle to does), you have no right to privacy, or even protection from public derision or ridicule, if it happens on a PUBLIC street – just ask any Hollywood star. That said, I can understand why someone with a cool ride may not want people to know where it’s parked, but hey, this is a boring Hyundai Sonata – who cares?!
I gotta tell ya, I just dont think the valet parking is a big deal. I know I’m in the minority here, and thats ok, but I live and work downtown and walk everywhere but when I have a date and go out to dinner I like to valet park the car so my date doesnt have to worry about walking too far in high heels…….whether the valet blocks off 2 spaces or 4 spaces to me seems pretty trivial and I think there are more important issues addressing the city that we need to discuss.
I guess it is a shame that the illegally parked cars can not be towed to the city impound. Something tells me that the practice would soon stop after the first tow.
The reality is that there are huge issues facing our city and entire metro area. Valet parking abuse does not even rank among them.
the larger issue at hand here is private use of public property, and particularly the public right of way. just because there are other issues does not mean this one should slide. it’s not that difficult, people: you are alloted X spaces in front of your business for valet. you use ONLY those X spaces in front of your business for valet. i have to follow rules. why the hell don’t they?
I worked 35 to 45 hours a week driving a truck for DHL while going full time to college. Boo effing hoo to the valets out there.
The comments directed towards Steve from the person claiming to be a valet struck me as odd and I don’t really believe they are what they claim to be; I did work for as a valet, amongst many other jobs, for a few semesters of college. The part whining about possibly having to run the distance of a city block, 20 times in a shift, is simply part of the job and I never remember my fellow valets complaining about that (sort of like working at McDonald’s and claiming to be surprised that the place smells like hamburgers). Also, purely from a linguistics/anthropological perspective, younger people today have been so conditioned by political correctness that I almost never hear someone under the age 25 use a phrase like “manned†and instead use something like “staffed.â€â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦. ………………
To INSIDER and MARK R….I understand what you’re saying but I disagree. Basically, you’re saying that STL faces some large issues (schools, violence, transit) and that abusive valet parking is small in comparison. My perspective is that the larger problems solve themselves when you fix the small issues. I’m not saying that fixing a valet parking dispute would fix public schools, but the cumulative results of fixing many small problems does revitalize a city. As an aside, I see a similar mindset at work between people that sign abusive (illegal) contracts with towing companies and valets that feel it’s acceptable to park a car in front of a hydrant.
Tony’s in the UMB Bank building on Market between 4th and Broadway uses the 15 minute parking lane on Broadway, the right lane on Market, and the left lane on Walnut for valet. The police will ticket you for parking there if you are not a patron of Tony’s. I tested it. I suspect Tony’s literally calls the police and reports which cars are not valet, otherwise how would they know?
You’ve piqued my curiosity Dole. Who is MB? Is it really Steve trying to stir controvery? He is such a media whore!(kidding)
If your car gets ticketed while being parked by a valet, I doubt you would ever see the ticket. Can you imagine a valet returning your car with a ticket on it?
If you valet park at all you should check with the city to see if you have outstanding tickets you don’t know about.
John M; not sure I understand your question about MB. I reread my post and don’t see any reference to an “MB.” Is that an acronym? I bet Steve really did get that email and is not making it up, I’m questioning the motives/identity/truthfulness of the write of the email to Steve.
Yeah, I think “MB” is the two letters that the post quoted from Steve above was taken from. I just liked where you were going with doubting its authenticity. So I inquired further as to anything else you were thinking on the subject but perhaps refrained from communicating. Either way interesting observation. Unfortunately I am exactly who I say I am. I know, depressing for me too.
More on PII: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/16/AR2008081602218.html
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It only becomes a privacy issue when a person is connected to a vehicle; the vehicle itself has no right to privacy, especially when it’s on a public street.