Council rejects cab licensing system

A proposal to create a “medallion” cab licensing system in Spokane was rejected by the City Council on Monday night, but the council said it wants to raise cab license fees and implement the consumer protections called for in the medallion ordinance.

Council members in a 5-1 vote said they did not want the city issuing a limited number of medallion licenses because that could create an artificial commodity for cab owners.

In New York and other large cities, medallions have a market value because those cities limit the number issued. The Spokane proposal would have set an initial limit of 80 licensed cabs. There are now about 55. The plan would have also made licensed cabs easy to identify by the medallion mounted to them.

Councilman Bob Apple, the sponsor of the cab ordinance, cast the only dissenting vote. He said he offered the proposal after working for a year with Spokane cab owners. A new medical evaluation system included in the ordinance would have ensured that only healthy drivers are licensed, he said.

Councilman Al French led the effort to strip medallion provisions from the proposed ordinance because, he said, it could have created a windfall for cab owners and would have done nothing for the public at large.

Council members sent the cab ordinance to the city attorney’s office for revisions before they adopt the higher license fees and new regulations called for in the proposal. Fees to cab owners would increase from $200 a year to $900 a year.

The higher fees would help finance an additional employee in the city’s weights and measures department to process cab licenses and perform inspections. That employee would also provide additional enforcement of cab licensing. City police would continue to license drivers and enforce the cab law.

Proponents said the medallions would reduce unlicensed cabs operating inside the city. Currently, cab drivers from Spokane Valley or North Idaho may drop off riders but not pick up new fares inside the city without a city license. However, Apple and other proponents said licensed cabs are being hurt by unlicensed drivers who siphon off business.

Spokane Valley cab drivers complained that not being able to pick up return riders inside Spokane hurts their businesses.

Cab owners who favored the medallion system said they were seeking an incentive to justify paying higher license fees.

“What we are trying to do is protect our interests,” said Axel Raven, a Spokane cab owner and businessman.

Another cab owner, Doug Larsen, explained that the medallions could be viewed as a long-term investment. “This is free enterprise at its greatest,” Larsen said.

But a number of cab owners and drivers spoke out against the medallion licenses, saying they would raise fares and make it harder to earn a profit. They warned that the medallions could lead to a monopoly on cab ownership.

“Getting rid of competition doesn’t help anything,” said Barb Kabrick, who represented a number of cab owners.

Cab dispatcher Howard Anstine said the medallions would create “another layer of bureaucracy.”

Spokane used to have a medallion system. Under that system, fewer than 100 taxi licenses were issued, almost all of them controlled by a single company, which rented some of the licenses to other companies.

Spokane deregulated the taxicab business in 1980.

Alley gets a name

Also on Monday, the council approved an ordinance naming the alley north of the railroad viaduct downtown Railroad Alley Avenue between Adams and Washington streets.

The change was sought by owners of condominiums that open onto the alley. Because the alley had not been a dedicated public street, the condo owners could not get mail service. However, city officials said they will still maintain the Railroad Alley Avenue as an alley.