by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Christmas is traditionally a time for giving but the season’s arrival usually means fewer downtown commuters will receive the car immobilization device known as the Denver Boot.
The boot is the City’s ultimate weapon in their battle against drivers who don’t pay their parking tickets. The device locks on to a car’s front tire making it impossible to move.
In a typical month, the City will immobilize about 50 cars, all of them downtown. But in November and December, that number drops by about 20 percent.
The dropoff isn’t a product of City Hall’s Christmas spirit, although Public Parking Chief Bob Carle admits to feeling guilty when he sees cars booted during the holiday season. Rather, Carle said on-street parking typically falls off during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holidays.
“We’re fairly consistent with enforcement, but we do see fewer immobilizations in the holiday season because we have less workdays in those months,” said Carle. “Our enforcement isn’t seasonal, but it does make me
nervous to think about people around Christmas finding a boot on their car.”
Like the rest of the City’s parking enforcement, the use of the boot is focused downtown; Carle said he doesn’t receive many parking complaints from the suburbs.
Carle seems conflicted about using the boot. He knows it’s an inconvenience, but said it’s sometimes the only way to ensure the City’s parking policies are followed.
Those policies aren’t in place to make money as many people assume, he said.
The City’s parking enforcement is designed only to turn over the City’s limited on-street parking spaces. The City wants those spaces available for downtown visitors, the ones most likely to spend money at shops and restaurants. The boot brings with it the City’s heaviest fine: $50 in addition to settling outstanding tickets.
Any car with three or more delinquent parking tickets on its rap sheet is eligible for the boot and even cars that are parked legally could be immobilized if they have a history of unpaid fines. Carle said boots usually come off the same day they’re attached.
The boot is often termed for the city where it was invented.
The Denver Boot first started aggravating parkers in the Mile High City in 1953. The original manufacturer is still one of the leaders of a growing industry as a subsidiary of Clancy Systems, a Denver company that specializes in parking technology. Clancy doesn’t supply Jacksonville’s boots, but does lease hand-held devices to the City that allow enforcement officers to remotely check a car’s tags and parking history.
Clancy CEO Stanley Wolfson said the market for the $300 devices is booming. Clancy’s orders come from new municipalities and from old customers adding to their inventory. New customers are important, Wolfson said, because the boots last forever. The 14-pound devices don’t rust and their simple three-piece construction is built to endure. Carle said he can’t remember the last time Jacksonville replaced its 30-boot inventory. The City has used the devices since 1983.
The devices are durable, but Wolfson dispelled the widely-held assumption that they’re indestructible. The device can be defeated with any number of common tools, but doing battle with the boot pushes the offender further toward the wrong side of the law. Destroying municipal property takes one from scofflaw to felon, he said.
Enforcement is the boot’s most effective and common use, but Wolfson is discovering other uses as well.
The devices are increasingly popular as security devices. For instance, they can be fastened on to roadside generators and mobile electronic signs. Anything on wheels can be secured with the boot, he said.
Wolfson thinks the boot gets a bad rap. Commuters curse them, but cities and retailers love them, he said. The boot is also preferable to alternatives like towing, he said.
“Good parking enforcement creates turnover and that creates more customers and more sales,” said Wolfson. “In my opinion, it’s a very positive thing for a municipality to do a thorough and fair job enforcing its parking regulations.”
That might be tough to keep in mind for the scofflaws that find one of Wolfson’s devices standing in the way of their drive home. For those unfortunate souls, Wolfson offers some simple advice.
“Just pay your parking tickets and you’ll never have to see a Denver Boot,” he said.
The standard boot is designed to fit vehicles that have a flat rim face. The difference between the standard boot and the 4x4 boot is the amount of height inside the hub. The standard boot will fit the majority of the vehicles on the road.
The 4x4 boot is designed to fit vehicles with a 4x4 hub. Both the 4x4 and the standard use the same clamp and arm. The only difference between the two is the hub cover.
The boot is a three piece assembly: wheelclamp, hub (lug nut) cover, and arm. The arm has two pockets which allow for an adjustment for wheel size (larger or smaller). The three piece assembly allows for a compact device and is very easy to transport in multiples.
The boot weighs 14 pounds and does not rust. It can be ordered either painted or not painted.
The average cost is $300.
The boot was invented in 1953 by Frank Marugg. Besides being an inventor, he was a musician with the Denver Symphony Orchestra, and a pattern maker. He was a friend to many politicians and police department officials in Denver.
The Denver Sheriff’s Department came to him to ask for help with their parking enforcement problem. Marugg and the sheriff decided to build a device to immobilize vehicles whose owners didn’t pay their outstanding parking tickets.
Marugg’s love for building things included his profession: he even made his own violin.
The best known of the immobilizing devices is the Denver Boot, which is manufactured in Denver by Clancy Systems, a company which is involved in various technologies related to parking systems.The family that owns Clancy Systems bought the Denver Boot rights from Marugg.
Clancy Systems International Inc. was founded in 1984 to provide parking solutions – primarily parking ticket issuance and parking ticket management systems for city governments, municipal agencies, colleges and universities, and private parking companies.
A trained officer can install the boot in less than a minute.