A tow truck company based in Washington County is believed to have operated for as long as two years in St. Paul without the proper annual licenses.

But city officials had a change of heart about ejecting the hauler from the city limits.

Since 2014, Absolute Towing and Recovery has removed vehicles from private apartment complexes on St. Paul’s East Side if they violate parking regulations.

A separate contract to monitor St. Paul Public Schools parking lots began in 2016. The cars end up at Absolute’s private lot in Newport where owners are charged upwards of $200 and $300 to get them released.

In recent months, however, it’s been Absolute Towing that has been under fire for allegedly skirting city rules.

In February, city inspectors acting on an anonymous complaint found strong evidence that the company hauled cars for at least six months without the proper city licenses, which were no longer valid as of May 2017. The city had issued a written letter to cease operations in June of 2017.

None of the cars towed since that time should have been impounded by the company at all.

Rather than allow company owner Timothy Heldman to pay roughly $600 in licensing fees and reinstate its licenses, the city attorney’s office as recently as early April asked Absolute Towing to haul itself out of town.

“The licensing office will recommend denial of the licenses,” reads an April 8 letter from Assistant St. Paul City Attorney Therese Skarda to attorneys representing the tow company.

In early March, Absolute Towing indicated in a letter to St. Paul officials it would not contest the city’s accusations. But company owners were “requesting the opportunity to address the (city) council regarding the penalty.”

However, a public hearing before the St. Paul City Council never took place.

The hearing scheduled for April 17 was withdrawn a day earlier at the request of the city attorney’s office, and the tow company was allowed to pay a $500 licensing penalty.

‘OUR CLIENT FULLY BELIEVED IT HAD THE REQUISITE LICENSES’

A reporter’s calls to Absolute Towing were not returned this week.

Ricardo Cervantes, director of the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections, said Friday that the company submitted the proper licensing paperwork in mid-2017, but its credit card was declined, effectively halting the process.

Absolute Towing then reapplied for the license in January, the month before the city received an anonymous complaint. In the nearly two years in between, the city did not receive any complaints about the company.

“They began the process before the complaint came in. That’s an important fact,” Cervantes said.

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“Our client fully believed that it had the requisite licenses for the business throughout 2018,” said David Forro, an attorney with the law firm of Caldecott and Forro, in the letter. “We are presently investigating the ‘no license’ allegation. However, the individual whose job included handling license compliance in 2018 is no longer an employee.

“We also believe this disgruntled former employee may be the source of the complaint that led to (the city inspector’s) investigation,” Forro wrote. “Because our client has numerous prior years of license compliance with the city of St. Paul, my client is electing only to contest the proposed penalty — taking away his present license.”

Christina Rivera, a former office manager for Absolute Towing, said she’s likely the “disgruntled former employee” in question.

Rivera, of St. Paul, said she worked for the company for nearly three years, leaving in February after repeatedly reminding Heldman, the company owner, that his permits had expired.

“He didn’t even try to get the permits until he brought in a general manager from Budget Towing,” Rivera said Thursday. “And that was in January.”

The city’s about-face on Absolute Towing has taken some former tow truck operators aback.

“You know if you’re in compliance or not, and you know if you have the most recent certifications,” said Troy Allison, a St. Paul resident who used to operate A1 Towing, and is a sibling of Rivera’s boyfriend, a former Absolute Towing employee. “Those people (he’s towed) should be reimbursed. Every single one of them.”

‘WE DIDN’T HEAR FROM THEM’

Responding to the anonymous complaint, DSI officials found this winter that Absolute Towing’s licensing issues dated back to an address change. In May of 2017, city staff had determined that the company’s tow lot had moved from 7500 Hudson Boulevard North in Oakdale to 2757 Hudson Road in Newport.

The new location required further review and city council approval because it was outside the city limits.

The company’s license application, however, was not approved that year.

Instead, on June 8, 2017, the company’s credit card payment was declined, according to documents provided to the city council by city staff.

“They submitted their paperwork, and the credit card they had given us would not work,” Cervantes said. “We notified them … and then we didn’t hear from them.”

On June 22, 2017, the city informed Absolute Towing in a written letter that it must cease all operations in St. Paul.

Seven months later, however, city staff noted that the company had never responded to the letter.

At the end of January 2018, staff recommended that the license application should be withdrawn entirely. The city received notice in May 2018 that a key form of business insurance — the company’s commercial surety bond with Nationwide Mutual Insurance — had been canceled.

“There were no complaints from June 2017 to February 2019, so there was an assumption they were not doing business in our city,” Cervantes said.

Tow companies are required to inform law enforcement dispatchers when they are in the process of removing a vehicle.

In February, inspectors reviewing St. Paul Police call logs found phone calls from Absolute Towing dating back to at least August 2018, evidence that tow operations had continued.

City inspectors also visited apartment complexes on Arlington Avenue and Hyacinth Avenue at the time and found Absolute still hauling cars.

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St. Paul City Council relaxes housing density restrictions near transit corridors The St. Paul Public Schools entered into a contract with Absolute Towing in 2016, at no cost to the school district. For the contract, the company dropped its normal rates of $265 per tow plus a $40 daily towing fee to $195 and $35, respectively.

That contract remains in place.

“Absolute does continue to monitor our lots for parking violations,” said Kevin Burns, a spokesman for the school district, in an email on Friday. “This is a zero cost contract to the district where the charges would be levied on the individual being towed.”