Glad We're Not This Stupid in Florida

This news story is so stupid it should be coming out of Florida, but it ain't.

Posted on November 30, 2012 at 8:54 PM
Updated yesterday at 11:42 AM

NEW ORLEANS - The Quicky's convenience store in Mid-City takes its parking lot rules seriously. Very seriously.

About 4 p.m. Friday, New Orleans paramedics rushed inside the store for a man with a life-threatening medical issue. They worked on the patient with chest pain, put him inside the vehicle, then started to speed off. The paramedics “heard a loud noise,” and the vehicle came to a screeching halt, according to Jeb Tate, spokesman for New Orleans Emergency Medical Services.

The medics stepped out and found a boot on their ambulance.


Convenience store employees allegedly put a restrictive parking boot on the ambulance. And now it was stuck.

The paramedics were perplexed. Tate said the ambulance had its emergency lights on the whole time. Store employees didn’t want to talk about it. They declined requests for comment.

Apparently one of the employees took the boot off. The tire was left flat.



And so the paramedics and the man with the emergency waited.

“We actually had to delay that patient's care by calling another ambulance out here to come transport this patient,” Tate said.

Signs on the convenience store make clear that parking is for customers only. The signs state: “If you leave the property for any reason your vehicle will be booted.”

But the paramedics apparently were there the whole time tending to a man with chest pains.
We called the telephone number on the sign, for the “Boot Man.” A convenience store employee picked up, then hung up.

Tate, the EMS spokesman, said the agency has never had an incident like this before.
"As long as we have our lights on, we park where it is safe to park,” he added.

http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Ambulance-gets-booted-while-tending-to-emergency-181631351.html

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

I should hope, if they don't have a law against interfering with an emergency vehicle, that they at least charge the store owner for that second EMS vehicle and the flat. They should arrest the mentally defective employee who put that boot on just for reckless endangerment of life.

I can't even begin to understand why they did this. Even if someone incorrectly assumed the medical staff was just in the convenience store shopping, the employee should have checked first. SO stupid!

Somebody's gettin fired.

CeCe wrote:Somebody's gettin fired.

Someone's getting sued! I hope the man with the chest pains is OK.

This looks like some greedy third world immigrants trying to gouge any unwary customer to the quick mart with an illegal fee for removing an unauthorized boot. I doubt they even cared about real customers to their store if they could get anyone to pay the ripoff. Hopefully the publicity from this overzealous employee results in some real investigation of this scam operation. But, New Orleans is notorious for allowing illegal activity (including the NOPD) so it is doubtful anything will happen. I have read comments from around the US where this action would be a felony, but in N.O. it is simple criminal damage to property. No concern about the guy laid out with chest pains and the possibility that he could have died for this city sanctioned stupidity and greed.
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Posted on December 3, 2012
Katie Moore / Eyewitness News
Email: kmoore@wwltv.com

NEW ORLEANS - The fallout continues for a convenience store that placed a boot on a working ambulance while EMT’s with New Orleans EMS were inside trying to save a man's life.

The man who booted the ambulance was a Quicky’s convenience store employee and New Orleans Police cited him for simple criminal damage to property for putting the boot on the ambulance.

Eyewitness News saw workers continuing to boot cars in their parking lot Monday morning. A worker at Quicky's convenience store said the employee, identified in a police report as Ahmed Sidi Aleywa, who booted a working ambulance Friday has been fired.

“The guy that did this, he came from another country. He didn't even know what an ambulance looked like. He's been fired,” said Ali Colone, a man identified as a worker at Quicky’s. The owners declined to comment, but Colone said the owners are sorry it happened.

“We just have rules and regulations that we have to follow by. There are signs out here for our regular customers,” Colone said.

Those rules and regulations are self-imposed. Quicky’s parking lot is private property. Signs posted read, “If you leave the property your vehicle will be booted."

Akesha Allen is a private investigator and in September, she stopped to get a drink at Quicky's. Before getting out, she climbed to the back of the van to secure her equipment when it started shaking.

“I said, what are you doing? I'm not illegally parked. He goes, yes you are. You didn't pay the fee. I said I never got out of the van to pay the fee,” Allen said about a $5 charge for parking in the lot.

They gave her a sheet that said she owed them $120 to remove the boot.

“We had to come out there with cash. They wouldn't take a check,” said Mark Avery, Allen’s employer at Deep South Investigations.

The sheet said it was booted by a company called "Bootman, Inc." But they're a subsidiary of Premier Parking Enforcement in Atlanta, and the owner sidekick's booting operation is not, and never has been, affiliated with them.

“It doesn't pass the sniff test, does it?” asked Avery.

Quicky's parking lot is private property. The city Code says private companies are allowed to boot, but they must be licensed with the city, they can only charge a maximum of $90 to remove the boot. Quicky's signs say they're charging at least $115.