Photograph by Adonis D. Photography
By some estimates, approximately 100,000 boots are placed on cars in Georgia each year, rendering them immobile until a fine is paid. At $75 per day, these fines add up quickly. So, in 2023, two entrepreneurial women created a workaround. The Boot Girls, as they are called, drive around Atlanta—primarily Buckhead—and remove metal boots for a $50 flat fee (paid in cash or via Cash App). Due to the nature of their work, they prefer to remain anonymous, donning bedazzled ski masks and going by the aliases Shiesty and Baby.
Previously beauticians, they’re best friends and business partners, unlocking boots by day and dancing in a strip club by night. They came up with the idea for their business in 2023 after Shiesty got booted in the apartment complex Cyan on Peachtree, where Baby lived. Shiesty later bought a copy of the key from the man who freed her car. She and Baby filmed a TikTok of them taking off a boot for $50, and business blew up.
Those in need of boot removal need only directly message @bootgirlsinbuckhead on Instagram, and the Boot Girls come to their rescue—often long before the private boot company arrives. They leave the boot intact and undamaged on a curb nearby. When they spy booted cars around the city, they drop a business card on the windshield. They’ve even lent their talents to celebrities such as rapper Yung Joc and hip-hop artist Kodie Shane. “We don’t got no beef with the people that put boots on the cars,” Shiesty told a Vice documentary crew last year. “But we gonna take it off.”
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This article appears in our February 2025 issue.
