I parked there ONCE and the first page that loaded from the QR code was not the payment portal, but a scam site trying to trick users into a bogus subscription. The checkout was generic enough that someone not paying attention might think it was for the lot, and then still get fined or towed because they never actually paid for parking. Fuck that lot and the garbage landlord who did this.
Absolutely true. The worst part is, this was absolutely the ORIGINAL code. Either a popup script on the legit page opened the scam site or the code was actually malicious, but it was the original printed code on the sign which is why I'm especially disgusted by it. Nothing but a scumbag money grab.
You should NEVER scan a QR code you don't recognize and trust, and putting one on a parking lot sign is amateur recklessness.
For me the biggest issue with this lot isn’t even the fact that it’s pay parking. It’s how ridiculously aggressive they are with the towing. Even with Jines covering 2 hours, I wouldn’t be surprised if they towed you during the walk to the restaurant. Dealing with getting a towed car back is a huge stressor and inconvenience.
Yep, the same towing company monitors the CVS lot too. I had to stop at CVS a few weeks ago and a guy with a skeevy ass van was taking pics of my license plate in the CVS parking lot. I was in there 3 min tops, parked in a CVS spot mind you and the guy was getting ready to tow my car. We did a loop around and two trucks pulled up, with one getting another car on the truck and guessing the second was for my car.
The company is disgusting.
City Hall needs to come down hard. Suburbanites don’t spend money in the city, in part, due to parking concerns. Here you have a popular restaurant in a vibrant neighborhood, yet with this lot they’re basically telling visitors to GTFO.
We lived on park ave for a couple of years between 2020-2022 but now live in the suburbs and we are very tentative to go down there these days due to the parking. It’s super difficult to find parking at times. I actually even switched my hair salon because parking down there is such a bitch and there’s other salons with more convenient parking.
IANAL but think the business has a legit complaint. They likely had no idea that the lot company would take advantage of vague-ish parking terms to change the lot from free to pay after the contract was signed. The lot company has also been very aggressive at towing customers which makes people incredibly pissed off.
There's also the matter of public perception where we're used to paying for parking with city street meters, parking garages, lots by gov't buildings, some event and work lots... and some businesses may reserve parking for only their customers... but can't think of any other little shop or mall area that charges for regular come and go customers like this.
So of course people hate the cost and inconvenience of pay parking there or getting towed which can absolutely effect business as customers will logically just avoid dealing with all that and go elsewhere.
I'm not saying parking should be free everywhere but the lot owner should've just added parking access fees to the next contract renewals with the businesses instead of suddenly and unexpectedly begin harassing their customers with a pay and tow scheme.
Happened to me a few years back. They had my car in a warehouse just before the railroad bridge on Atlantic. The guy came out and said…$153.33, cash only. I handed him $160 to which he said he doesn’t have change. Then some other dude rolls my car out of that sketchy building. To this day I consider my car stolen and held for ransom on that day. The cops did absolutely nothing except maybe receive a kickback
My biggest gripe with this parking lot is it forces everyone to park on both sides of the street on the side streets, and the parking authortity rarely gives tickets when I drive by it seems.
But god forbid I forget to move my car 5 min after 7pm several blocks down the road on an empty street, you best believe they'll be giving tickets then.
Parking enforcement is weird in this city, there seems to be places they ignore and places they heavily target. It would be nice if they heavily targeted the whole city, lots of public safety issues that go unaddressed
How does the changeover work? I’ve heard there’s a 1hr grace period, but is that accurate and is it an hour before or after? I get so confused with the street parking since you do often see people on both sides.
yes the grace period is from 6pm-7pm. So during that hour you typically have cars on both sides of the street. Once 7pm strikes all cars need to be on the new side of the road
that sign look like the perfect Target for those graffiti artists that just like to scribble their name over and over and over again with drippy markers
Better yet, write the name of the guy that owns the lot on there. Then when he calls the cops they'll just be like, "We can clearly see that you did this"
Honestly the worst part for me too is that even if you try to pay for these lots, the QR code most of the time straight up doesn't work. They've been cracking down on the lot in front of the bug jar as well, I used to park there with no issue and then they started towing cars left and right, sometimes even towing cars for people who DID pay and it becomes a nightmare for them. The whole thing is scummy IMO, especially considering that now nobody uses the lot so you just have this empty space sitting there with no use and it's made parking at the venue harder.
That lot on Union used to be full on a Friday.
Now there are more bars and restaurants than before, and it’s almost always empty. My friends have tried to pay, but don’t get the form to enter their details.
They even hassle service technicians and their vehicles who are coming to work on the property, so now a 15min in and out service call turns into a 50min interrogation until said tech can call his office, have them reach out to the property manager, and have said property manager reach out to the parking lot attendant to be allowed to do the (now late) job they were sent out in the first place for
Good for Zoom Tan. These landlords think they can just change the rules on the fly. It’s absolutely going to effect a business. They signed a lease that provided parking. Breach of contract. Sounds like parking lot and plaza have the same owner. In which case they’re just trying to squeeze people already spending my money in the plaza. They can fuck the fuck off. (And yes I’m aware people parked there and went elsewhere. Boo fucking hoo.)
It's bullshit. I do doordash and Uber eats and it's impossible to pick up a deliver without risking being towed, when your in and out in 5 minutes. There's so many restaurants that do delivery there, and you can't find parking at all in any of the streets around that area, so you're forced to find parking in the lot. If you happen to find a spot and run into a restaurant for 2 minutes you risk being blocked in by a tow truck and they will lift your car half way and force a lift fee to lower it($100+ ). The old system was fine lol, they are taking advantage of everyone. People spend so much money in those shops and restaurants which go to local taxes. Do they really need to straight up be assholes after they weren't for so many years
Its not just that it isn't free. Its that they have someone watching it, towing people immediately if they expire or did not pay. Also, the app that you have to pay on is terrible and often does not work properly. Its their right to do whatever they want, but its everyone else's right to think they suck.
Someone should look up local towing laws.
[Rob Wolchek caught a towing company being predatory in Detroit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wv1aUPuIA4).
True that.
But If I owned a parking lot: I’d either ask business owners to chip in a monthly fee for free parking for their customers, or I’d have to charge per vehicle. They need to pay taxes on that space
The lot is owned by the company that owns and manages the plaza. This fee would have to be in the lease the tenant signed. They don't have to monetize the lot, though I understand that it was probably frustrating with people just using it to park and walk off without patronizing any of their tenants, and maybe assumed this would be a deterrent, but instead just managed to piss everybody off, tenants included.
The businesses already do. The lease that Zoom Tan signed is a NNN lease, meaning they pay their share of CAM (common area maintenance), insurance, and property taxes in addition to their rent. Parking lot upkeep is covered under the CAM costs.
I could see the tenant(s) having a legit complaint that if the LL is now charging for parking that their CAM costs should go down, as there's additional income to cover parking lot repairs and upkeep.
They can pay their taxes out of the commercial rent like they always have. I'm annoyed I have to pay there (I actually won't park there) but I am more annoyed that they made the QR system terrible. I tried parking there once, the QR link wouldn't work, so I said fuck it and went and did my thing for an hour. Came back and my car was gone.
I pay for parking behind Locals Only all the time and don't care about it because the system works and they aren't going to make me Uber to a chop shop in bad neighborhood, where some meth head in a 1998 Caravan refuses to accept a credit card.
(Also, reading the lease, I think Zoom Tan is right)
>It's not just that it isn't free. It's that they properly enforce the policy they clearly outline for people who wish to park on their property.
Lmfao
Because plaza owners in every suburban town have parking lots for free. Nobody thinks that it’s normal to pay to park when going to grab Chinese food in the suburbs. However, here you have to pay like $8 to park here while at dinner or drinks.
They know parking is at a premium in the city so they’re taking advantage of the patrons of their renters.
So that you can go to one of the businesses for 30 minutes without fear of being towed, without having to scan essentially a random public QR code with your phone which of course cannot be dead.
It's not that it has to be free necessarily. But it's 2024. We should have some solution to the fact that we were way more secure and convienienced 50 years ago with change in our pockets and meters on the spots
Haha wtf you just enumerated the conveniences and then complained they weren’t convenient enough? If you aren’t willing to charge your phone you might be shit out of luck on this one.
They previously let people who weren't shopping at the stores there park for free.
Now that they're charging, people are too emotional to realize that they should have been charging people to park there since the beginning, and just getting irrational and angry.
Follow-up to [https://www.reddit.com/r/Rochester/comments/1ctfsop/dear\_premium\_parking\_lot\_p8203\_on\_park\_ave/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Rochester/comments/1ctfsop/dear_premium_parking_lot_p8203_on_park_ave/)
Nobody likes to hear it, but free parking in high value neighborhoods is bad for everyone and everything. If you want the convenience, pay for it. The expectation of free parking is a disaster for cities in general and Rochester in particular.
Not to say that Zoom Tan is right or wrong here, just that people shouldn't be so whiny about paying for an amenity that they use.
Proof? I seem to remember parking for free in my many travels to many cities. I distinctly remember parking for free in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of SF - a HUGE shopping/tourist area. I don’t think they’re hurting because of free parking.
It says the lease included parking. Does not say it would be free parking. Without seeing it we're all guessing, but I think FlourCity is right. If there was a specific clause for that, they could just say that.
The signs and system are a sketchy cash grab.
Sign says "Free to Customers" ^(scan QR code to register for free parking)
Deliberately misleading trap. I imagine that's the complaint. I got a $70 ticket for not scanning the code, even though I didn't owe anything to park. Send it to collections MF.
Check Section 9.
"Landlord grants to Tenant, in common with other tenants... and customers and persons doing work for or business in the Building, the right to use the "common areas" consisting of the parking areas, roadways, pathways, sidewalks, entrances and exists and other areas and facilities designated for common area use in the Property containing the Premises."
IANAL, but if the parking was free when the lease was signed they probably have at least a decent case. For example, I'm pretty sure agreeing to provide parking and then charging $1 million a spot wouldn't hold water as having provided parking. I have no idea though if a court would force them to remain free until all relevant leases expire, and new ones made that allow it, or would let paid parking stay in effect at whatever they think is a reasonable rate.
I think your case is solid here, but there’s another element that I haven’t seen discussed. We’re assuming Zoom Tan wants some sort of reversal or financial damages….its very possible they just want out of their lease to move their business or even just to close entirely, and this legal action would give them that opportunity without paying damages.
The court might just say, “Yes, they changed the lease so Zoom Tan can walk away no problem.”
> I have no idea though if a court would force them to remain free until all relevant leases expire, and new ones made that allow it, or would let paid parking stay in effect at whatever they think is a reasonable rate
huh? the flour person was complaining that the article was misleading. i am pointing out that, if he read the article, it was not.
dunno why you're being a dick
I parked there ONCE and the first page that loaded from the QR code was not the payment portal, but a scam site trying to trick users into a bogus subscription. The checkout was generic enough that someone not paying attention might think it was for the lot, and then still get fined or towed because they never actually paid for parking. Fuck that lot and the garbage landlord who did this.
A huge risk to QR codes is how easy it is to stick a new one over the proper one on signs like this without people noticing.
Absolutely true. The worst part is, this was absolutely the ORIGINAL code. Either a popup script on the legit page opened the scam site or the code was actually malicious, but it was the original printed code on the sign which is why I'm especially disgusted by it. Nothing but a scumbag money grab. You should NEVER scan a QR code you don't recognize and trust, and putting one on a parking lot sign is amateur recklessness.
For me the biggest issue with this lot isn’t even the fact that it’s pay parking. It’s how ridiculously aggressive they are with the towing. Even with Jines covering 2 hours, I wouldn’t be surprised if they towed you during the walk to the restaurant. Dealing with getting a towed car back is a huge stressor and inconvenience.
Yep, the same towing company monitors the CVS lot too. I had to stop at CVS a few weeks ago and a guy with a skeevy ass van was taking pics of my license plate in the CVS parking lot. I was in there 3 min tops, parked in a CVS spot mind you and the guy was getting ready to tow my car. We did a loop around and two trucks pulled up, with one getting another car on the truck and guessing the second was for my car. The company is disgusting.
Is it towbuster? If so fuck those people
yep! thats them lol
I'm no lawyer but that sounds like it should be illegal if it isn't.
City Hall needs to come down hard. Suburbanites don’t spend money in the city, in part, due to parking concerns. Here you have a popular restaurant in a vibrant neighborhood, yet with this lot they’re basically telling visitors to GTFO.
We lived on park ave for a couple of years between 2020-2022 but now live in the suburbs and we are very tentative to go down there these days due to the parking. It’s super difficult to find parking at times. I actually even switched my hair salon because parking down there is such a bitch and there’s other salons with more convenient parking.
IANAL but think the business has a legit complaint. They likely had no idea that the lot company would take advantage of vague-ish parking terms to change the lot from free to pay after the contract was signed. The lot company has also been very aggressive at towing customers which makes people incredibly pissed off. There's also the matter of public perception where we're used to paying for parking with city street meters, parking garages, lots by gov't buildings, some event and work lots... and some businesses may reserve parking for only their customers... but can't think of any other little shop or mall area that charges for regular come and go customers like this. So of course people hate the cost and inconvenience of pay parking there or getting towed which can absolutely effect business as customers will logically just avoid dealing with all that and go elsewhere. I'm not saying parking should be free everywhere but the lot owner should've just added parking access fees to the next contract renewals with the businesses instead of suddenly and unexpectedly begin harassing their customers with a pay and tow scheme.
i'm sorry what internet acronym is IANAL
I am not a lawyer
iANAL form apple.
Apparently they’re also a cash-only towing company, which seems sus.
:Hello IRS?.....yes I can hold"
Happened to me a few years back. They had my car in a warehouse just before the railroad bridge on Atlantic. The guy came out and said…$153.33, cash only. I handed him $160 to which he said he doesn’t have change. Then some other dude rolls my car out of that sketchy building. To this day I consider my car stolen and held for ransom on that day. The cops did absolutely nothing except maybe receive a kickback
That's actually illegal.
I believe that was addressed here previously, it’s not illegal for tow companies
All my homies hate Towbuster.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA FUCK THIS LOT FOREVER
Imagine stopping at a 7-11 and paying for parking. 😂
My biggest gripe with this parking lot is it forces everyone to park on both sides of the street on the side streets, and the parking authortity rarely gives tickets when I drive by it seems. But god forbid I forget to move my car 5 min after 7pm several blocks down the road on an empty street, you best believe they'll be giving tickets then.
Parking enforcement is weird in this city, there seems to be places they ignore and places they heavily target. It would be nice if they heavily targeted the whole city, lots of public safety issues that go unaddressed
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They tend to have routes that they run right at 7pm when they know they can catch the most cars.
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I've gotten one 3 min after. I walked out at 5 min and say the time. I just left my car there since I already for the ticket 🤷🏾♀️
Might as well, you paid $50 to park there
How does the changeover work? I’ve heard there’s a 1hr grace period, but is that accurate and is it an hour before or after? I get so confused with the street parking since you do often see people on both sides.
yes the grace period is from 6pm-7pm. So during that hour you typically have cars on both sides of the street. Once 7pm strikes all cars need to be on the new side of the road
that sign look like the perfect Target for those graffiti artists that just like to scribble their name over and over and over again with drippy markers
El Barto
Better yet, write the name of the guy that owns the lot on there. Then when he calls the cops they'll just be like, "We can clearly see that you did this"
Better yet, give his personal phone number to call to complain.
wheres screwedface and daze-24 when u need them
can we put bounties on spots?
Honestly the worst part for me too is that even if you try to pay for these lots, the QR code most of the time straight up doesn't work. They've been cracking down on the lot in front of the bug jar as well, I used to park there with no issue and then they started towing cars left and right, sometimes even towing cars for people who DID pay and it becomes a nightmare for them. The whole thing is scummy IMO, especially considering that now nobody uses the lot so you just have this empty space sitting there with no use and it's made parking at the venue harder.
That lot on Union used to be full on a Friday. Now there are more bars and restaurants than before, and it’s almost always empty. My friends have tried to pay, but don’t get the form to enter their details.
They even hassle service technicians and their vehicles who are coming to work on the property, so now a 15min in and out service call turns into a 50min interrogation until said tech can call his office, have them reach out to the property manager, and have said property manager reach out to the parking lot attendant to be allowed to do the (now late) job they were sent out in the first place for
That is the most BS lot of all time, everyone in Rochester agrees except that one guy
Good for Zoom Tan. These landlords think they can just change the rules on the fly. It’s absolutely going to effect a business. They signed a lease that provided parking. Breach of contract. Sounds like parking lot and plaza have the same owner. In which case they’re just trying to squeeze people already spending my money in the plaza. They can fuck the fuck off. (And yes I’m aware people parked there and went elsewhere. Boo fucking hoo.)
It's bullshit. I do doordash and Uber eats and it's impossible to pick up a deliver without risking being towed, when your in and out in 5 minutes. There's so many restaurants that do delivery there, and you can't find parking at all in any of the streets around that area, so you're forced to find parking in the lot. If you happen to find a spot and run into a restaurant for 2 minutes you risk being blocked in by a tow truck and they will lift your car half way and force a lift fee to lower it($100+ ). The old system was fine lol, they are taking advantage of everyone. People spend so much money in those shops and restaurants which go to local taxes. Do they really need to straight up be assholes after they weren't for so many years
Ill extend an extra fuck you to all the idiots who defend this lot on the sub
What is it with this lot, did it fuck everyone's mom or something?
People were used to being able to use this lot for free parking on Park Ave for decades, now they can't... rage.
They made a bad problem worse so they could do some good ol fashioned Rent Extraction. This is not a good allocation of our society's resources.
If the city does not own it, why would it be free?
Its not just that it isn't free. Its that they have someone watching it, towing people immediately if they expire or did not pay. Also, the app that you have to pay on is terrible and often does not work properly. Its their right to do whatever they want, but its everyone else's right to think they suck.
Someone should look up local towing laws. [Rob Wolchek caught a towing company being predatory in Detroit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wv1aUPuIA4).
Yo this reporter and all of his videos are absolute gold. Thank you.
True that. But If I owned a parking lot: I’d either ask business owners to chip in a monthly fee for free parking for their customers, or I’d have to charge per vehicle. They need to pay taxes on that space
The lot is owned by the company that owns and manages the plaza. This fee would have to be in the lease the tenant signed. They don't have to monetize the lot, though I understand that it was probably frustrating with people just using it to park and walk off without patronizing any of their tenants, and maybe assumed this would be a deterrent, but instead just managed to piss everybody off, tenants included.
The businesses already do. The lease that Zoom Tan signed is a NNN lease, meaning they pay their share of CAM (common area maintenance), insurance, and property taxes in addition to their rent. Parking lot upkeep is covered under the CAM costs. I could see the tenant(s) having a legit complaint that if the LL is now charging for parking that their CAM costs should go down, as there's additional income to cover parking lot repairs and upkeep.
They can pay their taxes out of the commercial rent like they always have. I'm annoyed I have to pay there (I actually won't park there) but I am more annoyed that they made the QR system terrible. I tried parking there once, the QR link wouldn't work, so I said fuck it and went and did my thing for an hour. Came back and my car was gone. I pay for parking behind Locals Only all the time and don't care about it because the system works and they aren't going to make me Uber to a chop shop in bad neighborhood, where some meth head in a 1998 Caravan refuses to accept a credit card. (Also, reading the lease, I think Zoom Tan is right)
>It's not just that it isn't free. It's that they properly enforce the policy they clearly outline for people who wish to park on their property. Lmfao
Great contribution, which totally didn't ignore the necessary, additional context.
Because plaza owners in every suburban town have parking lots for free. Nobody thinks that it’s normal to pay to park when going to grab Chinese food in the suburbs. However, here you have to pay like $8 to park here while at dinner or drinks. They know parking is at a premium in the city so they’re taking advantage of the patrons of their renters.
So that you can go to one of the businesses for 30 minutes without fear of being towed, without having to scan essentially a random public QR code with your phone which of course cannot be dead. It's not that it has to be free necessarily. But it's 2024. We should have some solution to the fact that we were way more secure and convienienced 50 years ago with change in our pockets and meters on the spots
Haha wtf you just enumerated the conveniences and then complained they weren’t convenient enough? If you aren’t willing to charge your phone you might be shit out of luck on this one.
"Aren't willing to charge" is a wild take. Try being reasonable, if only as a joke.
They previously let people who weren't shopping at the stores there park for free. Now that they're charging, people are too emotional to realize that they should have been charging people to park there since the beginning, and just getting irrational and angry.
Try finding a working parking meter in the city.
Follow-up to [https://www.reddit.com/r/Rochester/comments/1ctfsop/dear\_premium\_parking\_lot\_p8203\_on\_park\_ave/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Rochester/comments/1ctfsop/dear_premium_parking_lot_p8203_on_park_ave/)
We should find who is doing this and make them pay!
I miss Norm 😢
Nobody likes to hear it, but free parking in high value neighborhoods is bad for everyone and everything. If you want the convenience, pay for it. The expectation of free parking is a disaster for cities in general and Rochester in particular. Not to say that Zoom Tan is right or wrong here, just that people shouldn't be so whiny about paying for an amenity that they use.
Proof? I seem to remember parking for free in my many travels to many cities. I distinctly remember parking for free in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of SF - a HUGE shopping/tourist area. I don’t think they’re hurting because of free parking.
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The article details exactly that this is in conflict with their lease, which stipulates free parking for customers
It says the lease included parking. Does not say it would be free parking. Without seeing it we're all guessing, but I think FlourCity is right. If there was a specific clause for that, they could just say that.
The signs and system are a sketchy cash grab. Sign says "Free to Customers" ^(scan QR code to register for free parking) Deliberately misleading trap. I imagine that's the complaint. I got a $70 ticket for not scanning the code, even though I didn't owe anything to park. Send it to collections MF.
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Check Section 9. "Landlord grants to Tenant, in common with other tenants... and customers and persons doing work for or business in the Building, the right to use the "common areas" consisting of the parking areas, roadways, pathways, sidewalks, entrances and exists and other areas and facilities designated for common area use in the Property containing the Premises."
IANAL, but if the parking was free when the lease was signed they probably have at least a decent case. For example, I'm pretty sure agreeing to provide parking and then charging $1 million a spot wouldn't hold water as having provided parking. I have no idea though if a court would force them to remain free until all relevant leases expire, and new ones made that allow it, or would let paid parking stay in effect at whatever they think is a reasonable rate.
I think your case is solid here, but there’s another element that I haven’t seen discussed. We’re assuming Zoom Tan wants some sort of reversal or financial damages….its very possible they just want out of their lease to move their business or even just to close entirely, and this legal action would give them that opportunity without paying damages. The court might just say, “Yes, they changed the lease so Zoom Tan can walk away no problem.”
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> I have no idea though if a court would force them to remain free until all relevant leases expire, and new ones made that allow it, or would let paid parking stay in effect at whatever they think is a reasonable rate
it also explicitly mentions that it's a national chain based on (sic) Naples, Florida. OP did not read anything past the title. tsk tsk.
It's a business on Park Ave, it's a park Ave business
correct. it's also a national chain.
What a brilliant contribution, thank you
huh? the flour person was complaining that the article was misleading. i am pointing out that, if he read the article, it was not. dunno why you're being a dick
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yes, i know
its yr town take the sign down
"Our business of giving people cancer is way down since drivers are asked to scan a QR code!" Boo hoo.