Fremont County Vehicle Impound Guide

Where the vehicle ends up depends entirely on which agency made the arrest. Florence Police Department arrests go to the municipal impound facility in Florence, open Monday through Thursday only, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. — no after-hours release exists at all, and only cash, a local check, or the online portal are accepted. The Fremont County Sheriff's Office and Cañon City Police Department route vehicles instead to the Property & Evidence Lot at the Justice Center, which runs the same Monday-through-Thursday hours and adds a stricter rule on top: walk-ins are flatly refused. Retrieval happens strictly by appointment, arranged by calling the Sheriff's Office, leaving a voicemail with the specific case number and vehicle description, and waiting for a callback. Getting that case number during jail discharge, rather than waiting on formal paperwork later, is the single fastest way to start that appointment process.

Both facilities being closed Friday through Sunday creates what's genuinely the most punishing trap in this entire process. A vehicle impounded at 6 p.m. on a Thursday can't even begin the release process until 8 a.m. the following Monday — an 80-hour blackout during which storage fees keep accruing the entire time. At the Florence lot specifically, that stretch alone adds an unavoidable $120 in storage charges before anyone's even allowed to start the paperwork. And the storage fee is just the start: Florence stacks $150 for the tow itself, a $50 administrative fee, a separate $50 impound fee, and a $25 paperwork reissue fee — $275 in base charges before the first day of storage is even calculated.

Identity verification creates its own real problem. Both facilities require a valid driver's license to release a vehicle, but a DUI arrest typically means that license was just confiscated and replaced with a paper Express Consent Affidavit — and lot clerks routinely reject that paper document as sufficient proof of identity. The fix is a formally notarized Power of Attorney or notarized statement, naming a specific third party to retrieve the car on the owner's behalf, with that surrogate bringing their own valid government photo ID and the notarized document explicitly listing the vehicle's details.

For anything held specifically as evidence — a felony DUI, an accident, a vehicular assault case — the Evidence Custodian will not release the vehicle under any circumstances without written authorization from the District Attorney's Office, the investigating officer, or the court. Calling the impound lot directly accomplishes nothing here; the actual leverage point is applying pressure through the 11th Judicial District Attorney's office to lift the hold. Be warned this can genuinely take weeks or months if blood toxicology results are still pending at the state lab, since the vehicle remains an active piece of evidence until the state formally releases it.