The price of responsibility

Liam Garrity did the right thing, and he paid for it.

Instead of driving home drunk after a night out in Buckhead, he made the wise choice — left his car in a restaurant parking lot and caught a ride home.

But when Garrity, 23, returned the next morning at 11, he discovered that the car had been towed. He then had to bum a ride to the towing company — 30 minutes away in south Fulton — and spring his car. Cost? $120.

For anyone who likes to spend a night on the town in parking space-scarce Atlanta, you’ve probably had to make the decision at one time or another: Do you call a cab and avoid driving when you’ve had too much to drink, or do you go ahead and get behind the wheel to avoid booting or towing fees that could cost you more than a hundred bucks? After his expensive experience, Garrity says the choice became clear.

“I’d rather take the chance driving home than pay $120,” he admits.

It’s a case of economic self-interest versus public safety, and the two, reasons state Rep. Doug Teper (D-DeKalb), shouldn’t be at odds.

The legislator thinks he’s come up with a solution to make the choice easy.

Teper has proposed legislation that would prohibit towing and booting companies from removing or immobilizing vehicles parked at businesses within 500 feet of establishments that sell alcohol between midnight and noon the following day.

The bill is a common-sense initiative. On Sundays, sitting at his usual morning spot — an Aurora Coffee house in Virginia-Highland — Teper says he and his friends often would remark about the cars parked at a private lot across the street that had been booted.

“We all used to comment that this was really bad, because these people had the good sense not to drive drunk,” he says. Towing and booting basically encouraged people to chance a drive home after they’d had too many. “What we should be trying to do is to encourage people not to drive drunk.”

Garrity agrees.

“It would be one thing if I had left [the car] there until the next night, but I was back there the next morning,” he says.

Teper knows, of course, that towing and booting companies, as well as lot owners, won’t like the bill. Representatives from booting companies showed up in December 2000 to oppose City Hall legislation that limited their fees to $50 per day, and Teper’s bill might get a similar reception.

And that’s why he has proposed allowing the lots to charge up to $25 for overnight parking in addition to normal parking fees.

“They’ve got a right to make money, too,” he says about parking lot owners.

Teper says the bill has gotten support from lawmakers, but at press time, with the House confronted with approving a new redistricting plan, he was still shopping the initiative to lawmakers. The proposed legislation had been introduced in the House as a bill, but because of some procedural hurdles it had to be recast as an amendment if there was to be any hope of getting it passed this session.

And legislators are reluctant to attach a rider that they don’t know that much about. Still, Teper said Monday that it was a “decent possibility” that the law would get a legislative OK.

“There are two or three opportunities to do it,” he says.

If it’s approved, the legislation would be the first positive development in some time for Atlanta’s revelry seekers, who have already had to put up with the ever-imminent abolition of 24-hour clubs as well as stricter enforcement of Sunday drinking laws.

kevin.griffis@creativeloafing.com??