Taxi Law Needs Teeth

As the summer heats up, so does the taxi business in East Hampton Town, catering to visitors without cars as well as partying vacationers and locals who, after an alcohol-fueled evening, wisely leave their cars behind and take a cab home.

This year, the mix includes Uber, the nationwide on-call ride-sharing service that fares can summon with a smartphone app. The rapidly expanding company is well known and widely used in many cities, including New York, but has not established a permanent beachhead out here.

The packs of competing cabs have created chaotic situations in areas near nightspots, such as downtown Montauk — a potentially dangerous situation, according to officials. Citizens groups and the town board have debated for years about how to tone things down.

Taxi companies operating here are supposed to adhere to laws designed not only to protect the safety of passengers but also, for local companies, to temper competition from the out-of-town cabs that converge on the town for the hectic summer season. A law adopted several years ago and revised last year requires cab companies to have a business license, licenses for each of their vehicles (requiring an inspection of the car by town ordinance enforcement officers), and licenses for individual drivers, above and beyond the New York State chauffeur’s license they must hold.

As of now, apparently because of foot-dragging by Suffolk County, that last requirement is not being observed. County legislators voted last year to establish a taxi and limousine commission and implement licensing standards parallel to East Hampton’s, which makes fingerprinting and a criminal background check for drivers a prerequisite. All taxi drivers in the county would be required to obtain a Suffolk license.

Michael Sendlenski, a town attorney, explained yesterday that the county legislation would make it unnecessary for East Hampton to also require background checks and fingerprinting for drivers, allowing the town to save the associated administrative costs. However, the county licensing system, which was expected to be in place by the first of this year, has been delayed. A June 1 implementation date was also pushed back — until Jan. 1, 2016, Mr. Sendlenski said. While it is too late now for the town to implement its own driver-licensing provisions, he said, they will be put in place “one way or another,” before next summer, regardless of whether the county acts.

An incident in Southampton Town that Mr. Sendlenski described at a town board meeting underscores the role of taxi-driver background checks. The town, which requires drivers to submit to an examination, denied a license to a man who had recently been convicted of assault, yet in Southampton Village he was able to pilot a cab, and attempted to molest a 16-year-old passenger.

In recent weeks, East Hampton Town ordinance enforcement officers have set their sights on Uber, which has, according to officials, a large number of drivers seeking fares here. The company has reportedly had a big impact on local cab businesses, with some cabbies reporting business down by 40 or 50 percent, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said Tuesday.

Until this year, Uber was the largest company holding an annual town taxi business license, Mr. Sendlenski said. But under the revised law, Mr. Van Scoyoc noted, Uber is ineligible for East Hampton licensing. One criteria for a town taxi-company license is that the business must maintain an office at an East Hampton Town address; Uber evidently does not. In addition, Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday, the law requires that cars used by a taxi business be registered to the business; drivers for Uber use their own cars.

Uber drivers who have been stopped and ticketed have indicated that their company is prepared to pay the associated fines, the supervisor reported. “I think there’s a corporate push to flout the law,” he said. “Uber is saying, ‘We’re not going to comply.’ ”

The supervisor will meet this week with enforcement officers and other staff to discuss how to address the issue. Unlicensed Uber vehicles, said Mr. Van Scoyoc, have been on the receiving end of some 30 summonses since Memorial Day, including a sting-type operation where town personnel summoned the cars themselves.

Uber’s business model, of ride-sharing and cabs that are “e-hailed” through an app, places it in a category that often falls outside established municipal licensing guidelines or taxi and limousine commission regulations, and the company has encountered legal challenges in a number of its markets across the country. In New York, it offers only its so-called Uber Black or Uber Taxi services. Individually owned cars must be driven by licensed taxi drivers or holders of commercial licenses, and have commercial auto insurance.

Councilman Van Scoyoc, the liaison to the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, reported that committee’s Monday-night discussion of the issue to the town board the next day. Committee members complained of out-of-town cabbies sleeping in their cars, he said, evidently staying in the easternmost hamlet for a weekend’s work. A committee appointed by the town last year to address taxi-related issues will be reconvened, Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

When the town board meets tonight, it is expected to schedule a hearing on increased penalties for violations of the taxi regulations.

“It’s a difficult task; we can’t be everywhere all the time,” Mr. Cantwell said Tuesday. But, he said, “I think the public wants to believe . . . if you break one of these codes, whether it’s operating a cab without a license or littering our beaches, that there’s a price to be paid for all of that.”

According to statistics compiled by Betsy Bambrick, the town’s director of ordinance enforcement, during the week of May 23 to May 30, the ordinance enforcement department issued nine violations to taxi companies for lacking a business license. Also that week, following inspections, officers granted stickers to 74 taxis operated by licensed businesses. After a couple of counterfeit stickers were discovered last year, the procedures have been tightened, Ms. Bambrick said. Over Memorial Day weekend, an Uber driver was arrested for driving while intoxicated.

Taxi businesses based in East Hampton Town are really not the concern, Mr. Cantwell said. “Local cab companies have all been doing the right thing.”