The Polar Bar Parking Patrol

At Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, where we were stationed in the early 1980s, our Friday night routine revolved around dinner and drinks at the Officers’ Club. But one week the couple who lived next door in base housing inducted us into the Polar Bar Parking Patrol, and from then on we had a new way to celebrate Friday nights.

The Polar Bar was on 5th Street in downtown Anchorage, directly across from a pocket parking lot set in between three multi-story buildings. The building on the right had a NAPA auto parts store on the ground floor. The building on the left was home to a popular topless/bottomless bar, the Bush Company. The back of the parking lot was the back wall of a department store that fronted on another street.

If you stood in that parking lot and looked at the side wall of the NAPA building you might have noticed a small sign: Parking for NAPA Customers Only – Enforced 24 Hours, 7 Days a Week. But only if you craned your neck and looked up, because the sign was mounted at the second-story level. And you’d never see it at night, because the parking lot – and the sign itself – was unlit.

The city fathers of Anchorage, you see, had entered into a revenue-generating parking scam, with the cooperation of law enforcement, selected businesses, and a predatory towing company. The Bush Company was a jumping place, always packed. Patrons who couldn’t find a spot in the Bush Company’s own lot had to park on the street, sometimes two or three blocks away, a serious walk in 20-below weather. Patrons who didn’t know better – tourists, first-timers, and rubes in general – would see that empty NAPA lot and head right for it, not believing their good luck.

The tow truck drivers had their routine down pat. They hid in the alley behind the Polar Bar, keeping an eye on the NAPA lot through a parabolic mirror mounted above the alley entrance. As soon as someone parked in the lot and disappeared into the Bush Company, the tow truck driver would race across the street, jump out, hook up the car, and tow it away. The deed was done in three to four minutes.

The self-appointed mission of the Polar Bar Parking Patrol was to protect the rubes. We’d sit in the Polar Bar and watch the NAPA lot through the window. Whenever someone parked there, we’d put on our parkas, walk out onto the sidewalk, and shout across the street: Don’t park there, they’ll tow your car!

Some would say thanks and park somewhere else. Some would hide their faces, duck back into their cars, and drive away, ashamed to be caught visiting a nudie bar. But some – more than a few, actually – would give us the bird and tell us to get fucked. And leave their cars in the lot.

The best part of the deal was that, no matter what happened, we won. If the rube moved his car, we were a little band of brave citizen activists, scoring one for the people. If the rube told us to fuck ourselves and left his car in the lot, we’d savor our cold dish of revenge as the Man drove off with his car.

You talk about having fun on Friday night . . . damn, it don’t get much better than that. You know, I really miss those long Alaska nights!

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