(A) Members of the Police Department are authorized to remove a vehicle from a street or highway to the nearest garage or other place of safety, or to a garage designated or maintained by the Police Department, or otherwise maintained by this city under the following circumstances:
(1) When any vehicle is left unattended on any bridge, viaduct, or causeway, or in any tube or tunnel where the vehicle constitutes an obstruction to traffic.
(2) When a vehicle on a highway, street or road is so disabled as to constitute an obstruction to traffic and the person in charge of the vehicle is, by reason of physical injury, incapacitated to such an extent as to be unable to provide for its custody or removal.
(3) When any vehicle is left unattended on a street and is so parked illegally as to constitute a definite hazard or obstruction to the normal movement of traffic.
(B) Whenever an officer removes a vehicle from a street as authorized in this section, and the officer knows or is able to ascertain from the registration records in the vehicle the name and address of the owner thereof, the officer shall immediately give or cause to be given notice, in writing, to the owner of the fact of the removal and the reasons therefor, and of the place to which the vehicle has been removed. In the event any such vehicle is stored in a public garage, a copy of the notice shall be given to the proprietor of the garage.
(C) Whenever an officer removes a vehicle from a street under this section and does not know and is not able to ascertain the name of the owner, or for any other reason is unable to give the notice to the owner as hereinbefore provided, and in the event the vehicle is not returned to the owner within a period of three days, then and in that event the officer shall immediately send or cause to be sent written report of the removal by mail to the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and shall file a copy of the notice with the proprietor of the public garage in which the vehicle may be stored. The notice shall include a complete description of the vehicle, including the V.I.N. number, the date, time, and place from which removed, the reasons for the removal, and the name of the garage or place where the vehicle is stored.
(Ord. 41-1949, passed 1949; Am. Ord. 20, 2008, passed 11-3-08)