MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Car dealerships aren’t new to the stolen vehicle conversation in Memphis, but dealerships are giving thieves a run for their money with new security measures.
Chuck Hutton Toyota is putting around $1 million into security initiatives with Randy Chumley at the forefront of these changes.
“We have cameras that have very high quality,” Chumley said.
Even catching a guy sliding under the gate. They’ve since added another bar underneath the gate to prevent this from happening again.
Chumley said they used to have 10-15 break-ins each year, but with all the new security measures they've knocked that number down to two.
“Those cameras film everything,” Chumley said. “I feel like the secure measures that we have in place is exceptional.”
They have security cameras, a fence, barbed wire and a 24/7 security team. All of that, plus a solar powered gate coming in the next few months isn’t cheap. Running the bill up to about $1 million in security costs, the Smartflower going in soon will use the sun to power the gate so when the power goes out, security doesn’t.
Chumley said a lot of the people who break in hotwire cars to start it and get it out of the parking lot. Sometimes car keys are left out on desks in the dealership but he makes sure that’s rare at his location.
“We really monitor that quite a bit,” Chumley said.
He and his team installed a gate, locked with a passcode inside the building. Employees store car keys inside the gate which are then locked even further inside of another storage bin.
As they work to get the solar powered Smartflower installed at the front gate, Chumley is just hoping the thieves are dealt with by law enforcement.
“We just hope they start getting prosecuted, that’s the biggest thing,” Chumley said.