Uber Drivers Will Get Day in East Hampton Court

The standoff between the Town of East Hampton and Uber over the car-for-hire company’s lack of a business license in the town moved into the East Hampton Justice Court on Monday, with six drivers being arraigned on charges of operating a taxi business without a license, a misdemeanor.

According to Daniel G. Rodgers, a Southampton lawyer retained by Uber to defend the drivers, the town has not offered a deal to the more than 20 drivers charged so far. The rest of the arraignments will take place July 20, though all but two of the defendants were present in court Monday. “Plead guilty as charged, serve 30 days in jail, and receive a permanent criminal record,” is the only plea the town has thus far offered, Mr. Rodgers said on Tuesday at the courthouse before the arraignments began.

“That is not a negotiation,” Mr. Rodgers said. “This does not rise to the level of criminal conduct.”

Michael Sendlenski, the prosecutor for the town, would not comment on the process.

The six men arraigned were Sadikov Parviz of Brooklyn, Erkin Alver of West New York, N.J., Gain Guresci of New York, James Kelleher of Brooklyn, Cengiz Yildrim of Cliffside Park, and Cemal Pehliva of Brookhaven.

Alix Anfang, an Uber representative, said that the town had changed the rules for licensing just as the season began. However, Mr. Sendlenski had pointed out in a previous interview, the new law was actually passed more than 13 months ago, too late to be implemented for the 2014 summer season, but with more than enough time for Uber to comply for 2015.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Monday that there were three possible resolutions that Uber could pursue to allow it to station cars in East Hampton and still comply with the law. The first possibility, he said, was for the company to open a home office in East Hampton, and have the drivers who want to work in the town register their vehicles using the office address. Since Uber car operators either own or lease the cars, they each operate as a separate business for hire, and each would apply for their own business license.

The second possibility would be for Uber to form an alliance with a company already licensed and headquartered in the town. The third option would have the company recruit local residents as owner/drivers. Mr. Cantwell pointed out that the regulations governing cars for hire specifically allow an owner of one or two cars to run the business using his or her home address, as long as it is in the town.

Mr. Rodgers stressed that while he had been retained by Uber, he was there to represent each driver individually. He directed all questions regarding Uber’s handling of its East Hampton business back to Uber’s representatives, Ms. Anfang and Josh Mohrer, the general manager of Uber NYC. Both representatives were reluctant to say anything on the record, past the fact that they were there to support the drivers involved.

While Mr. Rodgers would not comment on Uber policy questions, he said described the law passed last year as “a moving target” that made compliance difficult. He also said he was willing to take each and every case to trial, if no deal is reached.

One of those arraigned, Mr. Guresci, who said he had been an Uber driver for three years, had a town-issued license last year. This year, he said, “the law changed. Nobody knew what was going on.”

Two Montauk taxi company owners, Mike Heather of Moko Taxi, a company with several cars on the road, and Mark Ripolone, owner of a two-car company, Ditch Plains Taxi, were in the courtroom Monday, observing the proceedings.

Mr. Heather complained that the Uber drivers, who he said flooded Montauk on Memorial Day weekend with everything from the high-end S.U.V.s to the lower-end uberX cars, were openly cruising for fares when they were not on a call and were price-gouging, charging several hundred dollars for rides that normally cost $20 to $30.

“They came early Friday,” he said of the Uber drivers. Because of the high price of a room in Montauk, the drivers “sleep in their cars for a few hours each morning. How safe and reliable is an Uber car, when the driver has been in the car for 72 straight hours?”

Mr. Ripolone said that Montauk taxi companies were working on an app of their own to allow customers to order taxis, with a pre-paid set price, from their smartphones.