Queens News: Queens Company Gets the Boot for Gouging Locked-In Drivers

More than 600,000 scofflaws have had their vehicles booted since 2020. City regulators cracked down on one unlicensed firm’s excessive fees with a proposed six-figure penalty

This article originally appeared in The City. 

By Reuven Blau

Queens Voice

October 30, 2025

QUEENS NEWS - A Queens company that illegally clamped down on vehicles while gouging scofflaw motorists with excessive fees to remove boots from tires has been hit with more than $180,000 in penalties — and will likely be stripped of its license. 

B&M Electronic Diagnostic Repair Service Inc. crews slapped boots on vehicles across the city without a valid license, failed to keep required logs and receipts and routinely overcharged drivers well beyond the city’s $25 limit to remove a boot, Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Fogel ruled Oct. 20. 

He recommended that the company pay $180,625.59 in overall penalties — including $5,875 in restitution to 29 drivers hit with excessive bills — and be revoked of its booting license. 

The ruling against B&M comes amid a surge in vehicle bootings across the five boroughs, city data shows

New York City Marshals and sheriff’s deputies have booted more than 600,000 vehicles since 2020, a dramatic rise after enforcement slowed during the pandemic. Just 31,379 cars were immobilized in 2020, compared with nearly 159,000 so far this year, marking a fivefold surge in vehicles being temporarily taken out of commission by fluorescent metal tire clamps.

Marshals and sheriffs have permission to boot vehicles once a motorist racks up more than $350 in unpaid parking or moving violation tickets. Those official boots are distinctive metal devices equipped with keypads that lock onto one of the vehicle’s tires, rendering it immobile until the driver pays off the debt. 

B&M’s violations spanned from December 2019 through late 2022, according to the eight-page decision from the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH).

The OATH ruling is a recommendation made to the head of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, who has final authority in the case. Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga has yet to make a decision.

Fogel also recommended revoking the firm’s booting license, noting that the company had offered no real defense and called itself “defunct” with “no assets with which to pay any fines.”

DWCP investigators discovered that B&M routinely charged motorists up to $225 to remove a boot — nearly nine times the legal $25 maximum.

The city has set up a website for motorists seeking refunds.

Under city law, private booting companies must be licensed and have written contracts with lot owners, post signage and keep detailed logs outlining when cars were first spotted and when boots were removed.  

B&M ignored virtually all of those requirements, city officials said. 

The firm clamped vehicles without city permission on at least 19 occasions, performed eight unlicensed booting jobs and failed to produce basic documentation like “time of first sighting” logs or receipts on more than 100 occasions, according to the administrative law judge’s ruling.

In a December 2023 stipulation with DCWP, the company admitted liability on all eight major counts,including overcharging, booting without contracts and unlicensed operations.

B&M’s attorney John Russo did not respond to a call and email seeking comment. 

During the hearing, he called the proposed fines “over the top” and argued that the case was “moot” since the company had shut down.

Fogel dismissed that argument.

“In total, respondent committed 235 violations of the Administrative Code and DCWP’s rules over three years,” Fogel wrote. “Respondent provided no mitigation for the violations.”