At a raucous session Thursday afternoon, the Chattanooga Taxi Board voted to table Randy Van Hooser’s request for 20 cab permits to open his All American cab company until its December meeting.
Chattanooga Councilman Manny Rico, newly appointed by Mayor Ron Littlefield to serve on the taxi board, had made the motion to table but rescinded his motion, though the board voted 3-2 to uphold the tabling.
With a new cab company pending and an updated ordinance in the works, taxi life may change very soon.
Officials said Chattanooga’s taxi car permit cap is now set at 128, though many board members weren’t sure if the official number was 128 or 150, as the 1992 ordinance states. Millennium Cab CEO and taxi board member Timothy Duckett, who sits on the board with Mercury cab CEO George Fletcher, said the cap was reset to 128 some years ago because the city’s demand required it.
Police said Millennium Taxi Service and Mercury Cab operate about 75 and 35, respectively, of the allotted 128 cabs, leaving only about eight cab permits for other Chattanooga cab companies.
The cab permits are distributed among the taxi companies and individuals. A permit waiting list replaces cabs slowly as permit holders die, retire or move away. Usually an open cab permit has been spoken for and is sold or willed, leaving other people on the waiting list for years.
Mr. Van Hooser’s lawyer, John Anderson of Grant Konvalinka and Harrison, P.C., asked the board to raise the cap to allow All American to start business with 20 cabs and to approve him for business. He stated for the record that he opposed Mr. Duckett’s and Mr. Fletcher’s participation in discussion and voting on his client’s request because they had an obvious interest in the outcome.
Mr. Van Hooser is no. 18 on the current waiting list, though Mr. Anderson said many people ahead of him have already been approved, that several are from the same big companies and some are deceased.
Mr. Van Hooser said the average wait time for a taxi in Chattanooga is 35 minutes, according to one 10-day study, and that the guaranteed pickup time is 15 minutes, except on holidays.
“This industry is in decline,” said Mr. Duckett, with many of his cabs sitting idle. “I think it would be grossly unfair to (bypass) the proceedings for one individual seeking a place in the sun. We don’t want to put one person in and crowd the others.”
Millennium was charged Thursday for one of its drivers found operating without a driver’s permit. Mr. Duckett said he knew nothing of the matter, and the board voted to put the company on probation for 60 days.
“People have lost faith in the cab companies of this town,” said cab driver, Howard Eitzen Jr. “The business is out there.” He said the numbers have not been analyzed since the Tennessee Aquarium was built and that Chattanooga gets a million visitors every year. The audience and board agreed that an industry analysis is due, though Mr. Duckett thought it would yield proof that Chattanooga can’t handle more cabs and Mr. Van Hooser and Mr. Eitzen thought it would prove the opposite.
Mr. Eitzen said he’s driven for all the major cab companies in the city but United. He said the drivers over charge and put passengers out on the interstate if the pre-paid tab runs out. He said the cabs are dirty and the drivers are rude and don’t have uniforms.
Audience members, cab drivers from Millennium and Mercury, spoke out against All American’s request with cries of “Black companies are going to suffer because Chattanooga has problems,” and “He’s asking for a white company to put a black company out of business.”
They also accused Mr. Van Hooser of driving his limousine as if it were a cab, without a permit, and soliciting passengers at motels, which Mr. Van Hooser denied.
“There’s no way to say (All American) is not needed,” said Councilman Rico, and that the board cannot decide “who can be in business and who can’t… People put themselves out of business. You have to work smart,” he said. He and board member Ruthie Dudley agreed the public market should choose, not the city. Councilman Rico said the current ordinance is “denying the common man from making a living.”
“This board isn’t working right,” he said. He said the waiting list is at a standstill and the board should be comprised of potential customers, not business owners. He said drivers are not sure where their applications stand, and some people have died waiting for their cab permits to make their way up the list.
JoAnn Revels, a cab driver from Atlanta, said she has been waiting for her name to be called from “the list” since December 2006. She said her Atlanta boss tried to get her a “privilege,” a taxi permit, here in Chattanooga, but after no success she said she was told, “No white woman ever owned a taxi privilege in this city, and no white woman’s ever going to.” She said she and her children were threatened, and that she would end up “smelling in a ditch” if she didn’t stop trying for a permit.
“A little bit of competition ain’t never going to hurt nobody,” she said, continuing with statements that cab companies don’t take care of their employees. She said Millennium cabbies are charged $700 per week for what they call “packages,” and she begged another former boss to replace brakes, tires and air conditioning in 110 degree-weather to no avail.
Attorney Anderson went back and forth with assistant city attorney Ken Fritz about taxi board member and quorum numbers. Mr. Fritz said the ordinance had been changed from nine required members to five, which the board currently has, and that meetings could be held with only three members to keep the board actively conducting business. He said it was too difficult to keep nine members and that making the five-member board inoperable if one member didn’t show was “absurd.”
The taxi board’s new ordinance should be in working order by January.
Hannah Campbell
hannahguess@gmail.com