My wife and I were looking for a fun place to spend Christmas night and decided to book a room downtown LA at the Freehand. The reason we booked at this historic-site over all of the newer commercial Hotels in downtown was because of the rooftop bar shown on the website, which looked amazing! Unfortunately upon our arrival around 7:30pm, we found out that it was closed. So we changed our expectations and just hung out in the lobby, which seemed fine... until that bar closed around 8 pm. Soooo, we shifted gears again and decided to have a late dinner in the Hotel restaurant, which despite our initial disappointment with the rooftop and lobby bars being closed, made the trip worth it. The food was excellent and the service top-shelf. We shared the Duck plate, which turned out very nice. My wife really enjoyed her Mojito, and the Beer selection was decent. The Hotel room was clean and comfortable, as expected, but the parking turned out to be a problem. The Freehand doesn't have any designated parking for their guests, so the choices are limited. Either use the Valet service, or drive around the block until you find an open spot on the street. I circled the block and got lucky. I found an available metered space about 75 yards from the Hotel entrance. The sign indicated that the meters were enforced from 8am to 8pm, so I put a dollar in the meter to cover the time left until 8pm with a plan to run out and put a few dollars in the meter at 8 in the morning to cover parking until checkout. I set the alarm and got up at 7:30am to go and feed the meter only to find when I got outside that our vehicle was gone. Initially I thought that it had been stolen, but when I asked the Valet if he had seen anyone break into a Silver SUV he informed me that it was broken into a few minutes earlier and had been towed. This course of events basically ruined our whole morning. It took me an hour to figure out who towed our vehicle, another half an hour to get a Lyft over to the City impound lot, and then another hour to have the documents of ownership validated and pay the fees to get our SUV released. All-up it cost me a total of $425. for towing, impound, various B-S LA city fees, and a Parking Citation that stated that I was "In violation of LAMC 80.69A, No Stop/Standing", which is a total Lie. I was parked at a meter that according to the street sign next to it requires payment between the hours of 8am and 8pm. The ticket left on our windshield stated that it was written at 7:49am. Even if the ticket were written at 8am, why would the City tow a Hotel visitor's vehicle at the same time that a parking infraction is being written-up? Wouldn't a payment of $118 for a parking violation suffice?
Conclusion: The City of LA extorted $425. from my family by breaking into & stealing our personal property and holding it for ransom. Because of this reprehensible treatment, we will not be returning to DTLA anytime soon.