An Uninvited Guest

The Thanksgiving holiday last week meant that the Grant St. Garage was mostly dark, since we had company all week. But, I did make it by on Saturday afternoon just to drop something off, and was annoyed to see a car in the side lot, parked none too carefully, and in the way if I wanted to pull into my overhead door. Annoying!

I actually am quite laid-back about that lot, because I am so often NOT there. I made it clear to the neighbors that they were welcome to use it on a temporary basis, when unloading stuff or when they had guests for a few hours. But I asked a couple of neighbors, and they said the car had been there several days. Since I was just dropping by, I didn't do anything right away. I made some calls to other neighbors and renters, and no one knew whose car it was.

So, this morning (Monday) I called the police, gave them the license number, and asked that the car be towed.
They said they would dispatch an officer. When he arrived just a few minutes later, the officer informed me that the car had been reported as stolen! Somebody stole it, and then dumped it in my lot! Probably was used for a drug run or some other illicit activity.

The officer interviewed me, and also the neighbor who lives next door. He stayed until the tow truck arrived. I wondered how they were going to move the vehicle, but was surprised when I looked a few minutes later and they had easily pushed it back into the street. He told me they had a "park override" - I guess our parked cars are not as secure as we would like to think.

They then hooked up the car, backed around into my lot, and away they went. I would have supposed that a wrecker pulling a car would not have been able to make that tight turn, but he did it without difficulty.

So, that was the second police action in front of the Grant St. Garage. The first one was in March of 2012, when a speeder ran from a cop, and abandoned his vehicle across the street and tried to get away on foot. The cop chasing him apprehended him right away, and then EVERYBODY showed up. John Zimmerman was working with me at the shop that day, so we had to stage a shot with that backdrop!