By JOHN KOZIOL

Staff Writer

LACONIA — Representatives of Laconia-based towing companies want a bigger slice of the Bike Week towing pie.

Derek Bertocchi of Bertocchi Towing and Al Raper of Al’s Auto Service told the Motorcycle Week Advisory Committee that the current system favors out-of-town towers and asked for the committee’s assistance.

Both men told the committee they were speaking for other local towing companies, as well as their own.

Created last November by the City Council, the committee is responsible for looking at several facets of Bike Week, including finding ways of creating a better relationship with businesses.

Appropriately enough, Ward 2 Councilor Bob Luther, who voted to form the committee, was the first to raise the issue of Bike Week towing with its members on Thursday. Luther said it was "not very often in the last 18 years" that a company that pays taxes in Laconia got to tow vehicles at Bike Week, which is an event that takes place almost exclusively in the city, in The Weirs to be specific.

Committee member Rick Heinis told Luther it was his understanding that the State Police decides who tows during Bike Week and State Police had indicated local towers were not willing to commit to being available for all of Bike Week because they feared losing other business.

That might have been true years ago, replied Luther, but not anymore.

Heinis asked why State Police were controlling what was essentially a local issue, drawing praise for that insight from both Luther and Raper.

Luther noted some of the towing companies that work Bike Week are from as far away as Manchester and Derry and the city, not State Police, operates the impound lot from which the vehicles are towed.

"These people are taxpayers in the city of Laconia," Luther said, referring to Raper and Bertocchi, and should have the option on towing during Bike Week.

Raper said for the past four years he has tried in vain to get on to the State Police’s list of tow companies who work the last four days of Bike Week and has been stymied every time.

"Somebody’s snowballing somebody," Raper said, adding he had never told State Police he could not commit his services for the entire nine-day duration of Bike Week.

The matter of Bike Week towing will be studied in greater detail by the Local Business and Landowners Subcommittee of the Motorcycle Week Advisory Committee.

The committee next meets on Sept. 24 at 7 p.m. in City Hall when it will hold a public hearing on Bike Week.