Two trips to North Shore Towing, two impounded cars and $270 in fees and fines later, Justin Vader and his roommate, Mustafa Shabib, are two ticked-off drivers.

The two students’ appeals of the fines at tow hearings Thursday afternoon were denied.

The Evanston Police Department had Vader’s and Shabib’s cars towed last Thursday in order to clear the streets for cleaning. Their cars were among nearly 70 cars towed near Northwestern that day, said Lt. Dan Mangas of EPD.

Vader said he found little satisfaction in his hearing.

“(The hearing officer) basically told me that only three people have won in his 10 years of being there,” said Vader, a Weinberg junior.

Shabib, a McCormick junior, also said he felt the cards were stacked against him.

“They said we needed proof (that there weren’t any signs posted), which we obviously didn’t have,” he said. “I feel like I was mistreated.”

Vader and Shabib said neither of them saw street-cleaning signs in the 900 block of Gaffield Place, where they parked their cars early last Thursday morning.

“I turned from Maple (Avenue) to Gaffield and drove half the length of Gaffield,” Vader said. He said he would have noticed if signs were posted.

Officials from North Shore Towing, the company that is contracted to tow cars for the city, were not available for comment Thursday.

But Mangas said he is confident signs were posted more than adequately.

“(The city) posts more than it has to,” he said. “Really you just have to have one sign on the block, according to the ordinance.”

Evanston Streets and Sanitation Department officials said it is their policy to post signs every 50 feet at least 48 hours before the cleaning date, said Zeltee Edwards, streets and sanitation superintendent.

But Vader and Shabib said they remain skeptical.

“That didn’t happen here,” Vader said. “They have to do their job of putting up signs, otherwise how can they expect me to know where and where not to park?”

EPD doesn’t hold the owner liable for the tow if signs are removed, Mangas said.

All of the streets around NU have parking on both sides, which means they have permanent street signs and are cleaned 18 times a year, Edwards said. EPD also routinely puts up temporary signs in the streets around campus so that they will be able to remove cars to make room for sweepers.

Areas with temporary signs only have parking on one side of the street and are cleaned nine times a year.

Vader said he is suspicious of the city’s motives for towing so many students’ cars.

“The city sees the university as a way to make money,” he said. “Obviously whatever they do to post signs is terribly inefficient, and they feel no need to change it.”

But Mangas said EPD doesn’t target students’ cars.

“(The towing) is fair because people are not aware that the streets are not for parking long-term, and they may not check their cars on a regular basis,” Mangas said. “When we tow cars we don’t say, ‘Oh, there’s a student’s car.’ It’s just a car that’s in the way.”

Mangas said he would much rather see an empty street ready for cleaning than one needing a lot of tow work.

“I would rather not tow cars,” he said. “It’s not like we make any money on it, and it’s time-consuming.”

And he acknowledged that towing cars does not benefit EPD’s relationship with NU students.

“If we tow, we’re the bad guys,” he said. “You never come out looking good.”

In the future Shabib said he will be more cautious about where he parks.

“According to them, they said there were signs 35 feet down the road,” he said. “So I guess next time I’ll just make sure there aren’t any signs anywhere.”