TURI "EL TERROR" TREVINO GOES BALLISTIC: WAGES GRUDGE WAR ON LOCAL TOW TRUCK OPERATORS AFTER LUCHA LIBRE FIASCO

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

It didn't matter that there were numerous signs at the entrance of the parking lot warning drivers that it was a private parking lot and that their cars would be towed if they parked without permission.

Those attending the "private...free event" – promoted by Arturo Treviño  of the mindless Gringo de Mayo bash game - at Felicia Fruia Edge's shell of a building at the corner of 13th and Levee streets,  believed that they could use the private parking lot caddy corner to the building to park their cars, but then were surprised when the tow trucks showed up.

Not only that, but Treviño blocked an adjacent alleyway to push his business, unmindful he might be blocking the way for emergency vehicles.

Like the rest of the owners of the 24 towing trucks operating in the city, El Rancho Towing, whose drivers showed up after they received a call of cars parked on the private lot, they set about to fulfill their contract with the property owner. (And no, said a tow truck driver, there weren't 15 or 20 cars removed, but at most six. Treviño promised to reimburse them for the towing fees. Did he? It's doubtful.)

The tow truck drivers were met with vociferous protests by the car owners and Treviño, whose ire was fueled by a previous encounter with the towing company.

It seems that some three years ago, despite the sign warning the vehicle would be towed, Treviño had left his vehicle at a gasoline station near the Old B and M bridge and came back to discover it gone.

"He didn't have insurance, or anything to show that he was the owner," remembers the driver. "But he warned us that he knew some city commissioners and, bankers, and some police officers who might remove us from the city's tow-truck rotation, you know, the influyente pitch."

What Treviño might not have known is that the city cannot intervene in a private contract between two businesses on a private property. And that apart from the city getting $20 each for cars that the towing companies haul away, that service has nothing to do with the placement of the companies on the city's rotation list. 

(Incidentally, a local police commander also leaned on one of the tow companies threatening just that after a towing service hauled away a car belonging to one of his friends and demanded that he be shown their business receipts and threatening with its removal from the towing rotation list. The company has already reached out to its attorneys to address the demands and threats.)  

In fact, numerous local night clubs, bars, businesses, and in South Padre Island hotels have contracted with the tow truck owners to remove vehicles that park illegally on their lots or ignore the signs while they  do business elsewhere.

In fact, the companies have to file monthly report of every car they tow, and the fees they charge, which are capped by the state on all towing companies. 

"We're closely regulated," said a towing company owner. "Those reports have to be filed in a timely manner."

But holding a personal grudge and influyente name dropping appears to be some of Treviño's favorite ploys because none other than City of Brownsville City Commissioner Pedro Cardenas and Cameron County Pct. 2 administrative assistant Eliseo Davila have inserted themselves into the brouhaha siding with Treviño, one of their classmates when all three – including Fruia-Edge – attended St. Joseph Academy.

And even as Cardenas acknowledged that the signs were posted (see graphic at right) and that the companies and business owners were within their rights to enforce their contracts and had said nothing about the towing contracts the companies had with local businesses until this happened, it seems that when it affects someone in the St. Joe alumni inner circle, things are somehow different.

They are already talking about addressing the issue before the city commission and of possible exposure to potential tortuous interference with a legal contract instead of admitting the companies are in their legal right to operate based on a mutual agreement between private businesses.

"It would seem inappropriate for elected officials and their representatives to insert themselves in Treviño's personal grudge and threaten official action," said a city administrator. "How can the city expose itself to potential liability because someone ignored the warning signs clearly posted on the entrances? It was just a badly planned event and they should just admit it and move on."