ATLANTA — A Georgia state senator is back with a boot bill.
In 2023, Sen. Josh McLaurin took a crack at introducing a bill that would ban booting across the state - it failed.
However, the state senator for North Fulton is back with HB119. It’s not a boot ban, but a compromise he said would regulate the industry just as the state regulates towing companies.
On Wednesday, the bill made it out of the Public Safety Committee with a 5-2 vote.
McLaurin said the bill is pretty simple: the goal is to stop boot companies from being allowed to monitor parking lots themselves and to stop kickbacks between the boot company and the property owners.
“We have documented proof that booting companies are paying kickbacks to property owners and managers for the right to police the lots and throw boots on cars,” McLaurin said.
He shared an email he said proved these kickbacks are happening.
“That sets up terrible incentives, perverse incentives, to throw as many boots on cars as possible because it makes the booting company money and it makes the property owner and manager money,” McLaurin said.
During Wednesday’s committee hearing, a few gentlemen spoke out against the bill. They described themselves as being associated with parking lots or companies who own parking facilities.
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“Booters should be allowed to patrol, and it really is not an issue - this is not the big issue they’d have you believe," a man who identified as a long-time parking consultant said,
Another man who described himself as associated with a parking company in metro Atlanta said some of the smaller lots depend on booting companies to keep them afloat.
“That’s the only way some of these small lots can be controlled and if you take that away there’s going to be chaos,” the man argued.
McLaurin said he just doesn’t agree.
“It just means they need to have somebody, anybody who does the bare minimum of monitoring their own lots so they can make the phone call when it’s time to enforce the violation,” he said.
The bill will now head to a rules committee and then the Senate floor before it can head to the governor’s desk.
The senator said he would love to see this signed into law by the end of the year but said he’s prepared to continue to the fight as long as it takes to get regulations on the booting industry.