Smart Roads Inc. removes illegally parked vehicles from private property in Newmarket. Twenty-four hours a day, at no cost to the owner, the condominium corporation or the property manager. Call 647-219-1786.
Newmarket concentrates its parking demand into a handful of places. The Upper Canada Mall district draws traffic from across the region. The Davis Drive medical corridor brings patients and visitors who need somewhere to leave a car for a few hours. And the older apartment stock along Yonge and Eagle was built with fewer spaces than the households living there own today. Visitor parking absorbs all of it, right up until somebody enforces it.
Why ticketing does not fix it
Most Newmarket properties try warning notices first, and they work on the person who parked wrong once by accident. They do nothing to the driver who has decided your lot is their parking space. A notice left on a windshield on private property carries no penalty anyone can collect, so the vehicle that got one on Monday is back on Tuesday. Removing the vehicle is the only step that actually frees the space, and the only one a repeat offender remembers.
How private property towing works in Newmarket
1. Authorization
You sign a short authorization naming Smart Roads as the towing operator for the property. It sets out who on your side is allowed to call for a tow, and you can cancel it whenever you want. There is no term and no minimum.
2. Signage
We supply and install compliant tow-away signage at the entrances and through the lot, at our expense. Without correct signage a tow is not enforceable in Ontario, so this step is not optional and we do not skip it.
3. The call, or the patrol
From there you either call us when a vehicle needs to go, or we patrol on an agreed schedule and act on anything parked in violation. Larger Newmarket properties usually run scheduled overnight patrols. Smaller ones call as needed. Both cost the property the same: nothing.
4. The tow, documented
The vehicle is photographed in place before it moves, removed, and reported so the registered owner can be told exactly where it is. You get that documentation whether you ask for it or not, which is what stops a complaint from becoming your problem.
Where we tow in Newmarket
We tow throughout Newmarket, including the Upper Canada Mall area, Davis Drive, the Yonge Street corridor, Eagle Street, Main Street South, Leslie Valley, Glenway, Stonehaven, Bristol-London, Huron Heights and Armitage.
The calls we get most in Newmarket
Hospital and clinic visitors parking in adjacent residential and retail lots is the most common Newmarket call, closely followed by apartment visitor spaces being used as permanent parking by residents and their long-staying guests.
Properties we work with
- Condominium corporations and property management companies
- Apartment and rental buildings
- Retail plazas, restaurants and shopping centres
- Office, medical and professional buildings
- Industrial units, warehouses and transport yards
- Car dealerships and service centres
- Places of worship, schools and daycares
- Construction sites and vacant land
Main Street, Davis Drive and the hospital
Downtown Newmarket runs on shared rear lots. Main Street South has almost no frontage parking, so the businesses depend on the lots behind them, and those lots fill with vehicles belonging to people who are not customers — staff from other blocks, transit users, and cars left overnight after an evening out. Along Davis Drive the rapidway removed most of the casual on-street options, which pushed the same demand into private plazas.
The hospital area is its own case. Lots near Southlake absorb visitors and staff who do not want to pay for hospital parking, and the businesses beside it end up managing a parking problem they did not create. The plazas around Upper Canada Mall and Yonge Street see the retail version of the same thing, heaviest between November and January.
Industrial and residential Newmarket
On Harry Walker Parkway and the surrounding industrial streets, the calls are about trailers, contractor vehicles parked across bay doors, and units whose yards are being used as free overnight storage by whoever noticed the gate was open. Once a trailer has sat for a week it rarely leaves on its own.
In the apartment and townhouse complexes along Yonge Street, Leslie Street and Mulock Drive, the pattern is visitor parking used as resident parking and fire routes used as loading zones. Both are solved the same way: signage, a written authorization naming who can call, and a documented tow when a vehicle earns one. The same service runs in Richmond Hill, King City and Markham.
How Newmarket handles parking on private property
Newmarket is unusually direct about it. The Town says its parking enforcement team works the public road allowance and, as requested, private property. There is no published registration program and no named form — the request route is the route.
- Parking without consent. Parking By-law 2019-63, section 7(5)(a), prohibits parking on private property without the consent of the owner or occupant.
- What the property has to post. Section 12(4) requires either a sign stating the conditions on which a vehicle may be parked, or a sign prohibiting parking outright. That is the whole requirement — no size, no wording, no placement rule. Section 12(1) authorises removal where a vehicle is parked without consent or beyond a posted time limit.
- Fire routes. Section 9, and here the by-law gets specific. Signs are a minimum 30.38 cm by 45.72 cm, at intervals of not more than 22.86 metres — tighter spacing than any neighbouring municipality — mounted at a minimum height of 2 metres and a maximum of 2.75 metres, and must read fire access route, parking prohibited, and vehicles will be tagged and/or towed away. The fire route penalty runs $125 early, $150 set, $175 late.
- Accessible parking. Section 14. The permit is displayed on the sun visor or dashboard, fully visible from outside. Failure to display it, or misuse of one, is $300 flat at every payment tier.
- Reporting to the Town. Customer Service, 905-895-5193, with after-hours voicemail. You will be asked for your name, address, phone number, the vehicle’s location and the nature of the violation, and your identity is kept confidential unless you consent to release it.
“As requested” means a queue. For a fire route or an accessible space that is usually fine. For the Davis Drive plaza where the same three vehicles take customer parking every weekday, or the condo on Yonge where visitor spaces are permanently full, a request-based system is not a solution — a standing tow-away authorization is.
It costs the property nothing
There is no fee to the property owner or manager. No monthly charge, no per-tow invoice, nothing for signs or patrols. The cost of the tow is recovered from the owner of the vehicle that was parked illegally, which is the standard arrangement for private property towing across Ontario. Your operating budget is not part of this.
The rules we work under
- Tow operator certification. Ontario’s Towing and Storage Safety and Enforcement Act requires certified operators, with certificate numbers and company identification displayed on the truck.
- Property authorization. A vehicle only moves when the property owner or their named representative has authorized it in writing.
- Signage. Tow-away signs go up where a driver can read them on the way in, and we put our name and dispatch number on them so anyone whose vehicle is gone knows who to call. No Ontario municipality prescribes the wording, which is exactly why so many lots are covered in signs that answer nothing.
- Published rates and an itemized invoice. Certified operators file a maximum rate schedule with the Ministry of Transportation, cannot charge above it, and cannot charge for a service that is not on it. The vehicle owner gets an itemized invoice before payment is asked for.
- Reporting. Tows are reported, so a vehicle owner who finds an empty space knows immediately where their car went and who has it.
None of this is optional, and an operator who treats it as optional becomes a liability you inherit. Ask any towing company in Newmarket for their certificate number before you sign anything with them.
If your vehicle was towed in Newmarket
Call 647-219-1786 and we will tell you where your vehicle is, what is owed and what to bring. You will need proof of ownership and valid photo identification. We would rather you had your car back today than argue about it for a week, so the process is deliberately short.
Questions we get asked
How much does private property towing cost me as the owner or property manager in Newmarket?
Nothing. There is no charge to the property, no monthly fee and no contract minimum. Our costs are recovered from the owner of the towed vehicle, which is how private property towing works everywhere in Ontario. You are not invoiced for a tow, for signage, or for patrols.
Can I have a car towed from my Newmarket property immediately?
If your property is already set up with us, with authorization on file and compliant signage posted, then yes. Call and a truck is dispatched. If you are not set up yet we can usually have signage and paperwork in place within a couple of days, because towing a vehicle without proper authorization and posted signs is not enforceable.
What signs do I need on the lot?
Ontario requires clearly visible tow-away signage at the entrances and throughout the lot, stating that unauthorized vehicles will be removed at the vehicle owner’s expense, and showing the towing company’s name and telephone number. We supply and install the signs for Newmarket properties at no cost.
My car was towed in Newmarket. How do I get it back?
Call 647-219-1786. We will confirm where your vehicle is, what you need to bring and what is owed. You will need proof of ownership and valid identification. Every tow we perform is documented and reported, so the location of your vehicle is never a mystery.
Do you tow from underground and structured parking?
Yes. A large share of the Newmarket work we do is underground, in condominium and commercial garages with low clearance. We use equipment sized for those spaces rather than trying to force a standard flatbed into a garage it does not fit.
How quickly do you get there?
Most Newmarket calls are attended within the hour and dispatch runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Fire route obstructions and accessible-space violations are treated as priority calls and go to the front of the queue.
Our lot sits beside Southlake and fills with hospital visitors. What can we do?
Signage at the entrance and patrols during peak visiting hours. Hospital-adjacent lots in Newmarket see the same vehicles repeatedly, so enforcement that is visible for two or three weeks usually resets the habit.
Can you tow from the shared rear lots behind Main Street?
Yes, as long as the written authorization comes from the owner or the party that actually controls that lot. Shared lots need the authorization sorted out first, and we will tell you if it is not clean.
Get your Newmarket property covered
Setting up takes one conversation and a signature. Signage goes in, and after that the problem is ours instead of yours. Call 647-219-1786, where dispatch answers around the clock, or send us a message.
We also tow in
Vaughan · Woodbridge · Markham · Richmond Hill · King City · Brampton · Mississauga
See the full private property towing service area.