Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) is pictured at a City Council meeting in May 2023. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36) will ask the City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection on Tuesday to approve new regulations for tow truck companies that operate within the city to crack down on bad actors. 

The license and consumer protection committee will also consider a proposal to ban the sale of hemp-derived intoxicants, such as delta-8 products, in the Pullman-Roseland area. 

Unlicensed tow truck companies create problems when they rush to the scenes of car accidents and pressure crash victims into agreeing to have their vehicles towed from the scene without the vehicle owners fully understanding the high potential cost it could take to get their vehicle back from a storage lot. Some companies require drivers to pay for their vehicles back in cash. 

Some rogue tow truck companies will falsely tell drivers they were dispatched by their insurance company. It’s also not unusual for the tow trucks to flout traffic laws to arrive first on scene at an accident.

Despite the city taking legislative and regulatory steps a few years ago to crack down “rogue towers,” alderpeople heard at a public safety committee hearing last spring that consumers continue to fall victim to bad behavior. 

Related: Public education, rotation program among possible solutions to ‘rogue towers’ discussed at public safety committee hearing 

Some of the suggestions offered last year were more public education, a tow rotation program and a consumer bill of rights. 

In 2021, the council passed a law (SO2020-4817) to establish a separate city license and requirements for towing companies operating within Chicago, including fees and registration for the individual trucks and lots operated by each company. Tow truck companies were already required to obtain and display safety relocator’s registration certificates from the Illinois Commerce Commission. 

The substitute ordinance (SO2024-0012277) before the committee Tuesday would amend that 2021 ordinance to introduce new provisions such as more protections for vehicle storage and better treatment of consumers. 

The ordinance would require tow companies to return vehicles to their owners or operators “in substantially the same condition as before being towed or stored” and prohibit moving stored vehicles from the tow storage lot they were first brought to without the owner or operator’s permission. 

The proposal also would encourage tow companies to accept non-cash forms of payment from people retrieving their vehicles. While still allowing some tow companies to only accept cash, the ordinance would require those companies to provide an ATM on-site at their storage lots for the public to use. 

The ordinance would also fault tow companies if they “fail to take reasonable steps” to prevent violations of the towing code. Currently, they’re only dinged for committing intentional violations. 

The measure would also add new prohibitions on towing operators that bars them from giving or offering “any payment, fee, reward, or other thing of value, directly or indirectly, for supplying information concerning a damaged or disabled vehicle which may require towing services;” and that bars making repairs on a stored vehicle without the owner or operator’s written consent after being informed of cost estimates.

The proposal also lays out new prohibitions on how towed vehicles may be stored and released, such as barring tow companies from preventing vehicle owners or operators from retrieving personal items from a vehicle before its release has been paid for; from conditioning services or the release of a towed vehicle on the owner or operator agreeing to repairs and other extraneous services; or from preventing vehicle owners or operators from retrieving towed vehicles during the days and hours of service the company has registered with the city.

The ordinance would also allow vehicle owners to sue tow companies in civil court for violations of the city’s towing code and allow police to impound the tow trucks of companies that have violated the towing code. 

The license committee will also consider an ordinance (O2025-0014904) from Ald. Anthony Beale (9) to ban the sale of hemp-derived intoxicant products in the 9th Ward. The Committee on Committees and Rules re-referred the proposal to the license committee in February.