Truck drives away with boot attached

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - We have an update about a Buffalo restaurant that is aggressively working to keep its parking spots open for paying customers. But are these measures going too far?

View the original story here about a man who was towed, even though he was a customer. In this case, it appears the man was not a customer.

Take a look at the video of a driver accused of parking his truck in the Templeton Landing's parking lot, damaging his truck rather than having it towed, and leaving behind the tow truck driver's severely damaged wheel lock.

Jerry Williams of Queen City Towing said, "Continued to swear at me and drove off with my boot on his car, destroyed the whole side of his car, the running board, there's plastic pieces that came off and stuck to my equipment, ruined my equipment."

The owners of Templeton Landing hired Jerry Williams to tow cars if the driver parks and walks away. Jerry says that happened in this case, and showed us the video to prove it. But Jerry also told us that the driver also tried to claim he was a customer.

"He walked into the restaurant, grabbed a pamphlet for the Moondance thing, and said, "We were patrons of the restaurant." I said, "Okay sir, do you have a receipt?" He could not produce a receipt," said Williams.

Parking spaces are also reserved for passengers of the Moondance catamaran, which docks at Templeton Landing. Parking has been a problem at the lot for years, and when all the spaces are taken, the restaurant's paying customers have no place to park, and that is not good for business. With only 83 parking slots, unauthorized parking was a problem when the restaurant was called Shanghai Red's, and before that when it was Crawdaddy's.

Marty Duffany, General Manager of Templeton Landing, said, "It's been a problem that has been going on here for years and people are using our parking lot to visit the other attractions down here, downtown."

But even some paying customers have not been exactly delighted by the policy. George Carter rode the Moondance but still got towed when he went to get ice cream while he was waiting for the boat to get in.

"Paid for our reservation with the Moondance, because it was already parked there, and then it sailed, and then we came back and that's when we discovered the vehicle was gone," said Carter.