Shopping Mall Employee Parking??

[Skyymiles]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Kansas

Ok, so basically we have a mall management group in at a mall in Kansas who has taken the liberty of creating some recent commotion regarding parking for employees of several vendors at our shopping complex. Over the past week or two suddenly employees are seeing mall parking tickets show up on their vehicles parked in certain areas of the lot around the shopping complex. These are very basic tickets(like a mall cop ticket would be) and just basically state the various violations the mall cops/security team has the ability to en force. I've never received one myself but I've started paying attention to who is recievng them and there seems to be some partiality shown to one or more businesses on our side of the complex to their employees who continue to park their vehicles supposidly in a "non employee designated area" in front of our respective vendors. So I looked at one of these tickets one of my co workers received and it just states they are in violation and subject to a $35 fine and possibly towed. I notice violation of employee parking is the only violation with a fine next to it. Whereas the rest which I would consider actual parking violations ie. Crooked, whatever etc. Do not. Some of our employees have received several tickets, no one has ever actually been towed to my knowledge. Some workers have moved to this supposed 'designated area' which is on the other side of the complex but others have not too. This supposed designated area I was told was anywhere passed a painted blue line which encompasses the interior parking spaces around the mall. But now they are saying that's not good enough and we need to park all the way on this other side and it's about an extra 5 minutes walk to get to work if we park there. My question is can they a.) Actually fine us for parking there with these "mall cop" tickets? And b.) Can our vehicles actually be towed if we're not in violation of any state /local laws? Thanks for helping us clear up the issue. We have tried to reach out to the mall parking management to try and understand why only some employees are receiving tickets and not others and this has only resulted in an increase in tickets. Thanks again!

 

[Zigner]

This would be a contractual matter between the vendor(s) and the mall/mall management.

 

[justalayman]

regardless of whether they can fine you or tow you, they most likely can prohibit you from parking in the lot at all.



so, if you think an extra 5 minutes is a lot, consider what not parking in the lot would do to your travel time.

 

[LdiJ]

regardless of whether they can fine you or tow you, they most likely can prohibit you from parking in the lot at all.



so, if you think an extra 5 minutes is a lot, consider what not parking in the lot would do to your travel time.

While I don't necessary disagree...I wonder how the mall cops know which cars belong to employees and which cars belong to customers? Its not like everybody who wants to park in the parking lot must have a decal or something.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

All this said, they own the lot and the property. They can certainly deny access to certain parts of the property as they choose and tow offenders if they comply with established laws. They are only liable if they are wrong.

 

[justalayman]

While I don't necessary disagree...I wonder how the mall cops know which cars belong to employees and which cars belong to customers? Its not like everybody who wants to park in the parking lot must have a decal or something.

they seem to know who drives what now somehow hence some of the people are getting tickets.

 

[LdiJ]

they seem to know who drives what now somehow hence some of the people are getting tickets.

I have a large mall about 2 miles from my house. My daughter worked there as a teen. She used my car to get there. I also shopped there. There was no way any mall cop could have know if my car was there because I was a customer or my daughter was an employee. On top of that, that parking lot probably holds 10,000 cars...I cannot imagine the mall cops even being able to identify which car belonged to whom. Even if stores were required to report the license plate numbers of their employees, again, I cannot imagine how such a system could be legitimately handled.

 

[justalayman]

I have a large mall about 2 miles from my house. My daughter worked there as a teen. She used my car to get there. I also shopped there. There was no way any mall cop could have know if my car was there because I was a customer or my daughter was an employee. On top of that, that parking lot probably holds 10,000 cars...I cannot imagine the mall cops even being able to identify which car belonged to whom. Even if stores were required to report the license plate numbers of their employees, again, I cannot imagine how such a system could be legitimately handled.

never heard of scanners that read license plates?

I don't know how they would implement it but as it stands, they have been handing out tickets somehow. That means they have some means of identifying the cars of employees parked in the wrong place.

 

[Skyymiles]

My understanding is that the mall has been sending these security officers out to watch and see in the mornings when we come in and when we leave to keep a record. They security employees told us they watch from the cameras around the complex, which is completely plausible but I have witnessed them sitting in the parking lots in their mall security vehicles watching me come and go. Just strange issuing tickets for some and not others parking in virtually the same areas. At the last location I worked at, employees were actually required to submit their tag number to keep on file with the parking attendants. So I imagine some similar agreement is in effect here as previously mentioned. When discussing with our local management, they seem to be under the impression the fine is ultimately paid by the company actually not the employee. I was just curious to know if there is legally a leg for them to stand on beyond ok it's pretty much just the fact it's technically private property so they can enforce /do what they want. Mall cop vs. Real Cops stance on the issue. Sounds like we pretty much just have to adhere to whatever they want or keep parking there and hope it's just a scare tactic on the generic tow tickets.

 

[justalayman]

Just strange issuing tickets for some and not others parking in virtually the same areas.

if their only means of enforcement is by watching employees come and go, for those employees coming after customers have started to fill the lot maybe ignored since it becomes more difficult to determine who is an employee and who is a customer.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

The easiest way is to monitor openers and closers, when customers are not present.