Parking lot owners declare battle against bandits

06:38 PM CDT on Sunday, August 29, 2004

By Carolyn Campbell / 11 News

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There's a battle being waged in Houston's downtown parking lots. Thieves are preying on customers and the pay machines.

KHOU-TV Benny Younger has been in the business for 35 years.

Longtime parking lot operators like Benny Younger say the thieves are driving down their profits.

Younger has been in the business for 35 years. But it's tougher now than when he started.

"We had to build these boxes around the locks so that people couldn't break the locks off and steal the money out," explained Younger.

His lot is small, only 63 spaces, but it's one of the many downtown parking lots constantly plagued by street people.

Younger says thieves leave wires behind after using them to take money out of the coin box.

"As long as they can get in there and get that bill up to the top, just one corner then they can pull it on through," Younger says. "I t's hard to catch 'em."

But he thinks one of his biggest offenders is off the streets. Kevin Trichel was arrested last week for allegedly posing as a parking attendant and collecting money at another lot.

"I've had the police out two times on Kevin," Younger says. "Couple of people told me they had paid Kevin, they didn't know that name, but they described him because he's tall, slim and has a lot of tattoos on his arms."

Younger's lot is right across from the Federal building, but he says he still loses hundreds of dollars yearly to the street thieves.

This is the sixth time in less than a year that Trichel has been arrested for preying on downtown parking lots. Younger hopes he won't see him around again for a very long time.

Police warn downtown parking lot customers to be on the look-out for phony parking attendants. Sometimes the thieves jam the pay machines and then convince customers to pay them by posing as an employee.

Downtown parking lot companies lose money and customers are sometimes towed or ticketed for non-payment when actually they've been victimized.