BATON ROUGE - On Wednesday, the East Baton Rouge Metropolitan Council unanimously passed a new booting ordinance, putting a limit on how much a company can charge to remove a boot.

Aaron Harrell is the manager of American Coachworks, one of the largest booting companies in the Greater Baton Rouge area.

"We are definitely in favor of there being some regulation in our industry. We want to make sure we can keep the bad actors out of the way," Harrell said.

An earlier version placed the maximum boot removal cost at $75. The version voted on Wednesday raised it to $150.

Councilmember Rowdy Gaudet said the increase came after he spoke to those in the booting industry. Harrell said $75 was too low and would put many booting companies out of business. He said that it would, in turn, hurt vehicle owners.

"A lot of booting companies would actually go out of business, and then the tow trucks just come back out. Towing is a much more aggressive way of parking enforcement in that the fees are regulated by the state and you're two... three times more expensive than being booted," Harrell said.

Viper Striker focuses on commercial booting like semi-trucks. Its owners, Chad and Theresa Jenkins, are also for more regulation, but said the original draft would have hurt their business.

"It would almost shut our business down because we can't pay employees to go out for a certain fee for these large vehicles," Chad said. "I think we've come to a reasonable solution on that."

The ordinance also includes language about the signage in lots where booting occurs, insurance requirements and sets a time limit for which a boot must be removed after the call for removal is made.

American Coachworks Owner Ann Spink said the company places around 150 boots a month in East Baton Rouge Parish alone, and said she would like to see the maximum cap raised higher than $150.

"I'm going to address the elephant in the room, and that's the rates. I don't know how this $150 rate was achieved," she said. "There's nothing addressed on how to increase that rate."

Gaudet said should inflation cause a need to raise or lower the max cap for booting companies, the ordinance can always go before the council and be changed.

"If costs continue to go up, and you want to come back and talk about an inflationary rate, we're going to keep working with the booting companies to make sure that happens," Gaudet said.