Buddy says a Hilton parking structure security guard wouldn’t allow him to drive his car away because he didn’t have a ticket. Buddy didn’t have one because the ticket machine was broken and couldn’t provide it to him. It took a 911 call to get to freedom.

He writes:

Last night, after having some lovely libations at Trader Vic’s at the Hilton Atlanta, everything was going great…until the security guard in the parking deck refused to allow us to leave.

It was 12:15 when we first tried to exit. The problem? When we arrived, the ticket machine for the parking deck said “Out of Tickets”.

When we got upstairs, I asked at the valet desk what we should do, since it was out of tickets. The lady there informed me that it’d been that way for a while, and to not worry about it.

Fast forward to 12:15, and the guard says we can’t exit because we don’t have a ticket! We can’t pay our way out, we can’t leave at all. He then threatened me when I started taking a picture of him for future reference. He tried to knock my camera out of my hand, so I switched to video and recorded his trying to remove the camera from my
hand.

We had to call down to the front desk, call 911, and show >$150 in receipts from the night before another security guard practically forced the parking guard to open the gates. He was literally arguing with the higher ups at the Hilton!

All said, it took us almost 45 minutes to get out. Yes, I did not have to pay, but I shouldn’t have had to pay anyway, as they validate parking when you visit Trader Vic’s.

Needless to say, this email is going to the Hilton press contact, but I thought I’d share it with you. If you’d like photos or video of the guard, I can send them.

If you’ve got a parking garage horror story that compares to Buddy’s, share it in the comments.

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