Running 26 miles usually earns you permission to stop moving for a while, but for dozens of runners at this year’s Twin Cities Marathon, it came with a major postrace headache instead. A number of runners and spectators had parked at the former Sears property in St. Paul, Minnesota, a spot that had been used for free parking during previous marathon weekends.
This time, any runner’s high they were still riding disappeared when they returned to the lot and found empty parking spaces where their cars should have been. The runners didn’t know, but Rondo Community Land Trust had taken over the site in the past year, and Guardian Recovery Services now manages the lot. Panhia Vang had planned to take her friend home to Minneapolis after the race, until she arrived at the lot and her car wasn’t there, with no clue to where it had gone.
She told the Minnesota Star Tribune that “theft” crossed her mind, before nearby runners and families told her about the towing. Vang said she was charged $399 to get the car back, with cash as the only acceptable payment method. And just in case that wasn’t enough, the ATM at the tow lot charged $7.50 per transaction, while limiting withdrawals to $200.
So getting $400 required two withdrawals—and $15 for the privilege. Even doing what the signs required didn’t necessarily save your car. Sam Wright told the Star Tribune he used the posted QR code, paid for parking, and triple-checked that the payment had gone through.
His vehicle was towed anyway. After he sent Guardian his payment confirmation, he said, the company brought the car back to the Sears property, about 45 minutes after he first raised the issue. As complaints piled up, Rondo told local NBC TV affiliate KARE 11 in a statement: “Rondo CLT was not aware that the Sears site was being used for Twin Cities Marathon parking or that cars were being towed during the event.
Event organizers did not contact us either before or during the event, and we were not contacted by the towing company about any special circumstances related to the event.” Rondo, a nonprofit, later said it would end its relationship with the towing company. At least Minnesota Governor Tim Walz had a considerably less expensive marathon weekend. He and his daughter, Hope, finished the Twin Cities 10 Mile just 11 seconds apart on Sunday, with Walz clocking 1:26:15 and Hope finishing in 1:26:26.
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