Kyle and I live near some very good restaurants on Farmington Avenue in the West End of Hartford; Tisane, Ichiban, Abyssinian, and Monte Alban.
A few months ago we met some friends for dinner at Monte Alban. Because we were running late and it was cold outside, I whined my way into convincing Kyle to drive us there, rather than making the .4 mile walk. There was no close street parking available, so we parked way in the back of the “Kinko’s lot” on Farmington Avenue, at the corner of Kenyon and Farmington.
The lot was essentially empty, it was after 6:30pm, and we thought everything was fine. Apparently we missed the “We will tow you with no exceptions” signs that were posted on the side of the building, not anywhere near where we parked.
We went into Monte Alban and enjoyed our dinner, which took about an hour. Then we proceeded back to the parking lot and the following dialogue went like this…
Amy: Hey, where’s the car? Didn’t we park right there? [pointing to empty parking space]
Kyle: Huh, the car doesn’t appear to be here. [scratching head]
Amy: Was the car stolen?!?!? [twitching and flailing starts]
Kyle: Calm down, calm down. I think we were towed. Yep, hey look, it says on the building that they’ll tow you. [starts rummaging for cell phone to call faded number on sign]
Amy: Towed? Towed where? Towed why? This lot is completely empty and no one is parked here! [voice getting shriller, flailing increasing]
Kyle: [speaking with towing company] Do you have our car? It’s a BlahBlah, license plate Blah. Okay, well where do we pick it up? Berlin. How much will that cost? $280, cash only. When can I get it?
Amy: Berlin? Why is the car in Berlin? $280?!? Are you kidding me?!?! [cursing starts, time to be spent in purgatory greatly increasing]
Long story short: we walk home, drive to the far reaches of Berlin, wait a half hour to meet some guy at a completely shady location, pay him $280 in cash (IRS audit anyone?), and drive home. Amy is in the doghouse for being “lazy” and making it the most expensive burrito dinner ever. [Although I later heard from another friend that they once had a $280 beer at Tisane due to the same unfortunate circumstances]
So why am I telling you about this? The parking situation for these four popular restaurants has recently improved. Some proactive West End residents worked with the property manager of the “Kinko’s lot” to secure some after hours parking spots for these restaurants.
You can now park in one of these 27 yellow-lined spots at the back of the parking lot…
Just make sure you follow these rules…
Seriously, follow the rules. If you park in a non-yellow lined space and leave that lot for other business, you will be towed. All the way to Berlin. So they can charge you $4 a mile for the towing. Am I still bitter? Nah…