Castle Rock restaurant says parking citations are hurting business

A Castle Rock business says its customers are plagued by parking citations from Parking Revenue Recovery Services, or PRRS. They say the situation has gotten so bad, it's hurting business. Many of those customers say they were wrongfully cited.

The business is located in a commercial strip called The Silo at 611 Wilcox Street.

Salt Craft Meat Market, two salons, and other businesses share the building and lot.

Parking is free for visitors to those businesses. If you park in the lot, you can scan one QR code to validate that you visited one of the shops, or scan another to pay for parking.

The problem is some people visiting those businesses claim they went thought the validation process, then got parking citations anyway.

"It's first question when people come in, 'Hey, did you park in our parking lot?' And if they if they're a regular, they say, 'Nope, we know better,'" said Castleview Cafe owner Tom Wurtz. "I spend half an hour a day on average, easily, just because I have to send each of these notices individually to get them dismissed."

Since opening Castleview Cafe last July, Tom Wurtz says he and his customers have been plagued by the parking situation.

"This is in less than a year," Wurtz said, while flipping through a large stack of citations. "It's got a picture of them coming and going."

Wurtz says he gets about four customers a day returning angry after receiving what they say are wrongful parking citations from PRRS for using the lot outside the restaurant.

"Frustrating, you know, because I know I did the work and put it in," said Matt Rogers.

Last month, Rogers said it happened to him after visiting the restaurant and completing the validation on his phone.

"I got a notification about three weeks, four weeks later that we got a $104 ticket," Rogers said.

Rogers says it took multiple calls to PRRS to resolve the issue.

"I finally got someone who told me that the system had recorded my submittal for the QR code. And I asked why I got the ticket, and they said that it just automatically sent," Rogers said. "I was told that I was going to get an email within 48 hours stating that everything had been closed out, but I never received any notification."

Rogers posted online about the ticket.

"That's a large ticket," Rogers said. "Just wanted to warn people, a heads up about it."

Dozens of commenters responded saying the same thing happened to them at the lot, some of them were visiting other businesses.

"I was super surprised to see so many people just reach out and have the same exact experience," Rogers said.

"They're pretty upset when they come back, you know, they're ready to put up a fight," Wurtz said. "They think they're going to have to battle this out and get lawyers involved if they don't want to pay the fine."

Wurtz says customers report little success in trying to resolve the matter with PRRS, and even say they receive threats of legal action or being sent to collections if they continue not to pay the citations.

"Most people say if they've tried to contact the company, they will not listen to them, and they're super aggressive on the phones," Wurtz said. "They're gonna send you to collections. They're gonna threaten you with legal action. And I'm sure some people say, 'You know, it's not worth the $100,' and go and pay it just to get it out of my hair."

Wurtz says the citations are hurting his business.

"We get reviews like, 'Food is great, but parking was a nightmare,'" Wurtz said. "It's something that's out of our control, which is particularly frustrating, especially when you're getting bad reviews."

Numerous signs have been put up by property management clarifying the parking procedure, and Wurtz even put up a sign of his own directing customers to free parking nearby.

Wurtz has now resorted to having the restaurant's host collect customers' license plates and fill out validation for them.

"We'll go out with our tablet into the parking lot, like the handicapped spot, and take down their license number. And you know, we're not experts at that, so sometimes a zero looks like an O or we just hear an M and it's an N when they're telling us the license plate number," Wurtz said. "I just think there's too much room for error. If they don't click confirm twice, then it doesn't register as if they were actually there."

PRRS told CBS Colorado: "A review of the parking data for that parking facility going back to Jan. 1 shows that 92% of the parkers (18,000 parking sessions) who used the facility did so properly, paying the appropriate fee or managing the validation process successfully. In that same period, 1,049 were issued notices, 446 of which were dismissed. The vast majority of notices resulted from user error, as in the case of the gentleman who typed in the wrong license plate number. In fact, none of the notices resulted from system errors. In the case of Castleview Cafe, that restaurant is under new management and it appears that they are having difficulty navigating the system. The parking operator has worked extensively with the restaurant's owners on tenant education, signage explanations, employee and permit enrollment, and overall process communication, and continues to work with them to help them navigate the process."

The company added: "Nine out of 10 parkers navigate the system easily and successfully. In the case of those who don't, PRRS works closely with people who receive notices to determine what the issue was and correct it. The technology is extraordinarily effective and accurate, with the data showing a 99.5% success rate.

"The technology is designed merely to help identify non-compliant parkers. In addition to recognizing non-payment and underpayment, that can also include vehicles parked in loading zones, handicap spaces, or improperly in reserved spaces. In Denver and the surrounding communities alone, it's estimated that parking owners lose between $40 million and $70 million a year to nonpayment and underpayment — and some estimates say the number could be as high as $100 million. These revenue losses don't just affect parking owners. Denver's entire business community relies on the parking that's provided by private parking owners, and if parking businesses struggle there's a ripple effect that spreads through the economy."

As for Rogers' specific case, PRRS told CBS Colorado: "The individual referenced below entered an incorrect license plate number into the validation system, which resulted in the notice being issued. Once the matter was appealed and reviewed, the notice was dismissed.

"Unfortunately, during the dismissal process, a customer service representative selected the incorrect disposition option in the system, which may have triggered an additional follow-up letter before the dismissal was fully reflected. However, to be clear, the notice itself was dismissed, and no further action is being taken.

"Based on our review, the system functioned as designed, as the original issue stemmed from the incorrect plate information entered during validation rather than a system malfunction.

"We are certainly always evaluating opportunities to improve processes and reduce situations like this wherever possible. In this case, however, the matter was resolved through the appeals process, and the notice was dismissed accordingly."

But Rogers said he believes he entered the accurate license plate and was never told by a customer service representative that was the issue.

"I kind of question the fact that they have the license plate in there wrong, or I entered it in wrong. I think that's a pretty lame excuse," Rogers said.

"Would you ever frequent this business again?" CBS Colorado's Olivia Young asked Rogers.

"I would. I would just be super careful about where I parked," Rogers said.

Wurtz says he's pleaded with his landlord to fix the situation, but was told they were locked in a contract.

"It's really impactful to customers. And if I got $100 ticket, I'd be pretty upset too," Wurtz said. "I contacted the landlord to say, 'Hey, this is really impacting my business.' He was, you know, amiable to potentially making a change, but when he contacted the parking company, he said there's a huge cancellation fee for him."

The property manager of the shopping center, on behalf of the property owner, said the owner's intent was to protect parking for patrons of the center. He reiterated there is a process for validating that's outlined and explained to business owners, and on an individual basis there's a process to address challenges that arise with improper citations.

The property manager said the property owner's contract is not with PRRS, but instead with a third-party parking monitoring vendor.

PRRS says parking technology services company Foresight operates the lot, and PRRS provides compliance services.

Foresight's website says they partner with "back end providers … across the parking industry."

"We do have a back channel way to get them dismissed, and this company has been pretty good about that," Wurtz said.

Wurtz says he's able to get the citations dismissed for customers by contacting Foresight. But he worries some customers won't be back.

"We feel really, really bad when they're coming in. And you know, one elderly woman that got a ticket, and she came in every day for about 10 days with her husband, and they were just so concerned," Wurtz said. "It's a real concern as a business owner. We want all the business we can get, and people are turned off by the parking situation. They don't want to deal with it, and they're going to go somewhere else where they don't have to deal with it."