Fare Warning

1. Yawn…who cares. What are you now Matt, the “Night Cabbie?”

2. This is just the comment I would expect from Steve Young. Too bad the complaints will go directly to your guests whom we’ll address outside the doors of you hotel with videotaped proof of your bellman pocketing kickbacks that they secured by using a syndicate of scumbags to skim the wallets of the hotel’s guests.

   We tried to work with you and you pretty much told us to go fly a kite. Steve, you’ll have only yourself to blame after your hotel’s reputation is questioned every time its name pops up on the internet. Stop the graft. Stop the kickbacks. Stop letting the bellmen collect a hidden tax on the transportation costs of the hotel’s guests and we’ll all be able to go back to doing our jobs!

3. It is about time this long running racket has been exposed to the public.
   Wow!Can I work downtown now?

4. I’m glad to see the city finally looking into this matter, however I doubt anything will come of it. The hotels involved bribe, I mean donate, too much money to the campaigns of local politicians and offer them steep discounts for use of rooms in the hotels during campaigns in order to keep politicians in their back pockets just in case something like this happens.

5. Charles Paugh- It matters little whether the politicians attempt anything. Our work now rests in the exercise of making the bellmen of Portland’s downtown hotels synonymous with collusion and bribery.

6. Looks like the the town car drivers are just feeding the mafia like racket the hotel staff have created.
   Fire the bellmen! Arrest them!
   Portland does not want big business’s that batantly disregard the rules and laws of the city.
   The city needs to crack down on the bellmen to make this stop.
   Busting town car drivers will not stop the demand for bribery.
   Busting the hotel staff will.

7. I think it should be known that the issue that is being told here is with “illegal” Town Car operators (not licensed by the City of Portland) and those that don’t know how to run a legitimate company. Taxi Drivers have been complaining about the limousine/executive sedan industry for years because they are basically screwed by the cab company owners. They complain that they are making less money but it is their responsibility to hustle for business every day. If you want to see the TRUTH, do a driveby at the airport on any given day and you will see over 100 cabs sitting in the staging area as you enter the airport. If those cabbies sit there for 2, 3, or even 4 hours with no fares then it is their problem. Maybe they should stage up outside the hotels downtown in their designated TAXI ZONES (which are almost always empty) and provide a higher level of service to the hotel guests. Getting a couple of smaller fares each hour would be better than possibly getting one big fare from the airport and nothing else.

   Legitimate “RESERVATION ONLY” Town Cars and Limousines don’t have to resort to paying off doorman because our clients pre-arrange transportation and usually have a credit card on file to pay the fare.

   Cabbies- quit complaining on how un”fare” it is and start working the streets like your job description states. If you can’t hack it as a cabbie FIND ANOTHER JOB, no body is holding you hostage to this one!

8. The city of Portland has looked the other way for many years when it comes to code enforcement. First it was Jim Francisconi who gave the hotels complete control over the loading zones outside their hotels. Because of a letter of agreement granted by then Commissioner Francisconi between parking enforcement and the hotels the parking enforcement officers will not enforce any type of violation in those loading zones, unless the hotels themselves ask for it. Consequently, the doormen can and do allow town cars to park for unlimited times right outside the hotel doors and solicit rides from hotel patrons.

   Many town car drivers hang out in the hotel lobbies and go after anyone getting off the elevator with luggage. Even though the city code stipulates that town car service is to be by reservation only, something like 90% of airport trips in town cars that originate from downtown are from on demand service. This has been illegal since the advent of town car service but the city has never, to my knowledge, enforced even that most basic of city code rules.

   Who cares, blithely asks the first commenter above. Well, anyone who wants a functional mass transit system should care. Cabs are an essential component of any mass transit system. Folks who decide they can live in Portland without a car depend on the transit system to get around, and also depend on a taxi system for the occasional rides that mass transit cannot accommodate. Town cars could disappear tomorrow and the vast majority of transit users would not even notice they were gone. You get rid of the cabs and there would be a severe impact on many people, like the elderly who may need to get to a doctor’s appointment or someone who overindulges and should not be driving their own car home.

   Town cars are, by definition, a luxury form of transportation, both by design and by the governing philosophy of the city transportation planners. They are supposed to service a niche populated by the corporate elite and the wealthy snobs who deem themselves too good to rub elbows with the great unwashed masses. As such their fare structure is, by code, supposed to be “substantially more than cab rates”. $30 to the airport is less than it costs in a taxi. They can do it that cheaply because they do not have anywhere near the same operating expenses that the cab companies have. Cab insurance, for example, is four times as high. Cabs are also required to service all parts of the city 24 hours a day. This means they must have a substantial fleet size (the two larger companies have more than 150 vehicles each) and must also have a dispatch system. They are also required to have 10% of their fleet be wheelchair accessible and must do so at standard cab rates. Try calling a town car sometime and tell them you are in a wheelchair and need a lift. Town cars are not required to comply with the ADA here in Portland, even though most other cities impose that requirement on them.

   Most of the worst offenders in the town car game have one or two cars and their overhead consists of a cell phone. Some have been known to lease their cars from rental agencies. It is no wonder they fought the requirement to have signage on their vehicles and are allowed to have small city tags on their license frames instead of a plate that must be screwed in to the back of their vehicle, like the cabs have. We can’t even be sure that they have commercial insurance. Several years ago the airport decided to have all the town cars submit proof of commercial insurance and the next day about two thirds of the town car fleet had to leave the airport backfield. Most of those ended up downtown “working” the hotels.

   Its about time that the city cleans up this mess and begins to enforce their own rules. Instead, they continue to make promises that they never keep. They have been “working” on a code rewrite for the past 10 years or more that is supposed to address these problems. They have promised a demand study for several years to get a real assessment of needs but this too has never come to pass. By code they are required to do a demand study before issuing any new permits but just this week they allowed another company entry into the already crowded market with an “executive decision” that bypassed their own Private For Hire Transportation Board of Review, the representative industry body that is tasked with such decisions. Shame on the city.

9. Dear “luxury transportation”,
   Town cars have a city imposed regulation to charge $50.00 flat to and from pdx. As to not steal taxi business.
   If your drivers are charging any less they are breaking the law!!!
   If anything you say is to be respected, your drivers must stop paying bribes to the bellmen.
   Follow the law and the market will correct itself.
   Basically your argument is a bunch of bulloney.
   In other words “your full of soup kid”!

10. “Luxury Transportation”,
    I do work the stands and I watch the town car drivers and bellmen conspire through bribes/kickbacks to steal taxi business!!!
    If this collusion was stopped I gaurantee you would see alot more taxis on the stands.
    Also, you seem to have know idea of the rules and regulations yourself as your comprehension of this problem is way above your head.

11. “Luxury Transportation”,
    Yea, if your town car drivers can’t “hack it” without bribing the bellmen and illegally undercharging then you should close up shop buddy!
    If you can not exist without operating a legitamate business throughout, your cars are taking up unneccesary space on the streets of our fair city.
    Move to Beverly Hills where you might get some legitamate business!

12. k

13. Cab owners, operators, board members, cab company management;
    I think it is time we find out and expose who on the Private For Hire Transportation Board is colluding with the hotels and tourism industry to prevent the existing rules and regulations for town cars to be enforced.
    Who on the board and elsewhere on the city payroll is responsible for letting the board bypass their own ruling to issue more permits last week?
    Who on the board and on the city payroll is preventing the the city from enforcing its own rules?
    Why was the “bribery order” language submitted by the board’s taxi company representative put on the backburner so the board could ask permission from the hotels and tourism industry first?
    Maybe the board answers to the hotels first, then the town car companies.
    Meanwhile they blow smoke in the taxi industries face.
    If anybody knows of any collusion between the board members and the city with the hotels and town car companies, please report it to the press, craigs list, forums, blogs and everyone with an ear.
    Lets get to the bottom of this once and for all.

14. At the heart of our concern is the inability of hotel staff to assess the qualifications of the transportation providers they’ve chosen to foist upon their customers. We feel that since hotel staff demand $10 kickbacks from town cars, this exercise in collusion harms only the guests who are never able to realize this bribe as a discount to their transportation costs. If the city has deemed a $50 flat rate as being the uniform cost from the downtown hotels to the airport, why is it that the 20% (minimum!) kickback is absorbed by the bellmen and not repurposed as a discount to the passenger? Conversely, the taxi industry has been given permission by the city to charge a $26 flat rate to the airport. This serves as a value to the hotel guests yet it is ignored in favor of utilizing other schemes which place a hidden charge in the pockets of hotel doormen.

    It should never be assumed that we in the taxicab industry do not recognize the need for the premium services provided by the town cars. We completely understand that quality transportation has a gradient of forms and services not applicable to the work that we do. But, with that said, we will not sit idly by and watch as the bell staff connive and conspire to throttle access to visitors who simply want professional transportation absent of any hidden costs or dubious transactions.

    The hotels need to establish a zero-tolerance policy that says the first time an employee accepts a kickback, he’s fired. The first time he quotes a fare less than $50 in a licensed towncar, he’s fired. The first time he accepts a kickback from an unlicensed, unregulated, uninsured towncar rented from Avis to transport one of the hotel’s guests, leaving the hotel open to a massive lawsuit in the event of an accident, he’s fired.

    Until such a policy is uniformly adopted, all concerned parties will have to conclude that it is not just the town car drivers who shirk the law but also the hotel staff and management.

15. “To: P-Town Love & Dumpy & Bob Wagner”

    First- I am a legitimate limousine/executive sedan company based in the Portland Metro area. I operate under the guidelines of the City (no matter how crazy and screwed up they currently are) and my sedans do not go into the Downtown area because I do not have any of the “Golden Permits”. I have a warehouse where I keep my vehicles inside, a computer system, a phone system, an 800#, internet website expenses, marketing expenses, payroll, PROPER COMMERCIAL INSURANCE on multiple cars, etc. In fact, I probably have as much overhead on a comparison basis as a cab company with 30x my fleet size.

    Second- The ILLEGAL sedan operators are a pain in both the taxi industry and the legal executive sedan operators’ ass. I wish they (illegal operators) would go away as well. The truth is, if the taxi industry was servicing the downtown area better, the illegal town cars would have no business and go away. But, have you really looked at a taxi lately? With the exception of a few new cars purchased (spelled- Prius & Scion) most of the cars are high mileage former police cars that are beat to hell. In fact I saw a yellow one at the airport about two weeks ago and it was broken down right out in front- the driver’s side suspension snapped and the car was blocking both lanes of the Commercial Roadway as you came up the ramp! If I was a cab driver or cab company owner I would be more afraid of the City’s talk of instituting a language proficiency and geography test than worrying about the illegal town cars!

    Third- The Hotels Need To Monitor Their Employees Better…When I went into the Govenor Hotel about a week ago to talk with the concierge, he was not available. I introduced myself and my company to the front desk gal and the first thing out of her mouth was “…what kind of kick backs do you give if we use you?” My response to her was, “You should use me because I have a quality service to satisfy your clients!” I had almost the same response from the Westin too. The guys at the desk were more interested in how much I would put in their pocket than what my service level was. I don’t buy business and if the hotels downtown will only use me because I will slip them something under the table, then I will continue to sell to the end user and bypass the whole lot of them.

    Fourth- (TO BOB WAGNER) I went to the ADA site tonight and scoured it for ANY LANGUAGE that required my company to provide an executive sedan, limousine, or van (remember I am not public, I am private-for-hire) for a person with disabilities. Guess what I found. NADA. You see I have less than 15 employees so I am exempt from certain ADA requirements when I hire someone, but further, I am not a PUBLIC PROVIDER (bus, taxi, streetcar, etc.) of transportation so therefore I would not be required to offer a lift, or other assistance. Also the law reads: “…They must comply with requirements for accessibility in newly purchased vehicles, make good faith efforts to purchase or lease accessible used buses, remanufacture buses in an accessible manner, and, unless it would result in an undue burden, provide paratransit where they operate fixed-route bus or rail systems.” So you see BOB, although you would love for me to have to retro-fit my entire fleet of cars so you maybe could ride once in a while, it would create an undue burden for me to do so and therefore I won’t be doing it in the future. Sorry.

    Finally…Taxi Cabs and Legal Executive Sedans DO NOT SERVICE THE SAME MARKETS! No matter how many times taxi owners and drivers tell themselves we are stealing their business, there is less than 10% overlap in business. If you will, please examine the following model- person needs food, doesn’t have a lot of money, goes to McDonald’s (taxi)…..person needs food, has extra money to spare, goes to Morton’s (executive sedan). Although both places fufill the same need, one is better than the other.

    Please understan, I have no problems with Taxi drivers. They do provide an integral part of the transportation model. I DO HAVE A PROBLEM when they generalize all limousine and sedan companies as “shady” or underhanded. We have every right to operate in the City of Portland under the free enterprise system. The fact that my business model is better (or my chauffeurs make more money) just shows that I have put more thought into running a successful business. I am an equal opportunity employer and would welcome any taxi driver who meets our criteria to apply for a chauffeur position with my company!

    LT

16. I would also like say the photoshop job of the sedan in the article’s picture is terrible. If you are going to do something like that, PLEASE take the TAXI LIGHT off. It is embarrasing to the executive sedan industry. The picture is really that of 2 TAXIS that crashed and can be found here:

    euroross.blogspot.com/Taxi%20Crash.jpg

17. Luxury Transportation-

    It seems as though we’re on the same page and share the same concerns. My only question to you is if you understand the need to set flat rates for your services at +$50 for transportation to the airport? Are you satisfied with the logic behind assessing the impact made on the transportation industry when this rate is lowered, either by customer idealism or by the general disregard for regulation that some towncar drivers exhibit?

    In answer to your question about taxis servicing the downtown area, we’re left with a chicken/egg dilemma. What came first, the need for better service or that of the dwindling availability of business due to the throttling of customers by the hotel staff? How can it be argued that we serve, 24 hours day, every other aspect of downtown Portland yet are nowhere to be seen when a guest needs transportation to the airport?

    Regarding your observations about the general appearance of taxis and the make and model types, what budgetary advice can you give an owner? Should we invest more in upfront costs only to later sink more in variable costs for long-term maintenance or should we follow the procedures we’ve currently worked out that allow us to grab used models, at reduced prices, at public auction and let them serve their purpose for the standard 24-30 months? It has to be remembered, we’re paratransit “workhorses” doing the small jobs right along with the big jobs. The value that we pass onto the customer comes from the satisfaction of knowing that the city has set our rates and from there we won’t deviate.

    I have to thank you for mentioning both the Governor and the Westin by name. They deserve to be outed as institutions willing to skim money off their guests to serve the punks at the front door. Both hotels were contacted by us and both refused to change they ways. They too, just like the Embassy Suites, will now have to rethink how they manage their brands. Up the corporate chain, someone will see the need to rearrange management and when that happens those who have sullied they hotel’s reputation over the collection of kickbacks will surely be looking for new employment. As far as we’re concerned, that serves our ends just as well.

    Your stance on the ADA requirements is understandable but still unfortunate. If you don’t have to comply, why would you? The only answer I could proffer would be that you’d do so simply for the opportunity to differentiate your service from that of your competition. Perhaps you’d like to provide wheelchair accessibility in one or two vehicles so that you might serve the disabled whom I’m sure would enjoy your premium service. I’d like to believe that Portland’s disabled community eats more than just McDonald’s, if I may borrow from your analogy.

    In your last paragraph you’ve combined two conflicting arguments. I agree that we’re not the same service and therefore we’re not vying for the same customer tastes. But to say that you’ve created a superior business model assumes that you’ve done so because you’ve recognized a flaw in our business model. If we are, as I stated early, the industry’s workhorses, you must be the race horses. If you wouldn’t ask me to run the Kentucky Derby, I certainly can’t ask you to pull a plow.

18. Two important things to remember. There are Black Cars (Town Car Cabs) and real Executive Sedan Services. Those of us running real businesses don’t need to wait downtown for some bellboy to sell or living for us. However an overzealous enforcement without regard to who they’re targeting just leads to embarrasing situations where real corporate travelers paying $50 or more for this ride are watching their chauffeur harassed by parking deputies and city staff.

    It’s easy to go after these Gypsy’s. Go to a Broadway hotel, request a town car, one magically appears, ride to the airport, pay the discounted rate, then fine the crap out of them.

    Let the rest of us solidify the real corporate car market and get these clowns out of town.

    BTW… The kickback is $10 to $15 per trip, depending on the fare quoted by the bellman.

19. Luxury Trans, Keep it real,
    Obviously the illegal town cars are a problem for all of us as well as a potential liability for the customers and hotels.
    The hotel staff are creating the demand for these illegal town cars.
    LT, the experience you had at the Governor and Westin hotels can be verified by others as they have had the same experience. Most of the hotels downtown are running this racket and they need to be stopped!
    We need to stop the hotel staff from taking kickbacks/bribes. Only then will we rid the downtown transportation industry of the illegal/gypsy town cars, cabs and all the other unscrupulous, unlicensed, uninsured crooks.
    THE HOTEL STAFF ARE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM! THEY CREATE THE DEMAND FOR THIS RACKET!
    The hotel GMs need to reign in their staff! If they do not they are obviously aware and involved for one reason or the other.
    Legitimate town cars and taxis should document all illegal/dishonest activity. Get names, times, dates, license plate #’s and any other pertinent info. Take pictures, videotape, audio. Then we can all present our evidence(which will be easy to obtain) to the media and the city.
    Lets expose these criminals and go back to to doing the work our job descriptions allow us to.
    BREAK UP THE RACKET!!!

20. Taxi drivers accusing someone else of running a racket? That’s just beautiful.

    You people do realize that you’re able to inflate your fairs and promote your bloated business model only because the government artificially limits your competition, right? If that’s not a racket, then I don’t know what is.

    If two guys with a cellphone can drive someone out to the airport at a competitive price, pass off a few bucks to an underpaid bellhop, and still make a profit, then they’re running a successful business and deserve every rider they get.

21. Kyle,
    Town cars must charge $50.00 to the airport. It is the law. You must be involved in the “racket” to make such an uninformed comment.
    Those two guys with the cell phones, the hotel staff with the walkie talkies(governor hotel, hotel Lucia, etc) are running a criminal racket and conspiring to only provide fares to town cars that have bribed them.
    Crawl back under your rock. You need to respect the laws of Portland or move to a less desirable city rife with criminal activity. You will feel at home there. I can promise you that.

22. Kyle,
    Remember your “competitive price” induced through a bribe/kickback is illegal. Read the city code before you incriminate yourself and your buddies.

23. Kyle, Thank you for helping to confirm the fact that the hotel staff and “illegal” town cars are in fact conspiring to run an illegal racket.

24. The Towncar drivers are paying the bellhops to provide a service, to advertise their business. Just because the government has decided to criminalize free market activity (with the intent of making a select few richer), doesn’t mean the people who engage in said activity are doing something ethically wrong.

25. Kyle,
    I don’t know what crap hole you crawled out of. Lying is considered unethical to most humans. Bribing someone to get business is unethical. Putting a customer in an uninsured vehicle through a bribe is unethical. In your world I could buy a customer and put them in my uninsured vehicle(if i had one) and raise their fare halfway to their destination due to road conditions, gas prices, my mood, the bellmen qouted them wrong, etc.
    I could also kick them out of my vehicle and tell them to call a cab if my bellboy friend calls me with a more lucrative trip. No refund either.
    Here Kyle, I have a business pitch for you – “Sorry customer this is the free market and you don’t come first anymore. The biggest bribe gets the biggest ride. There are no rules and the customers opinion and safety concerns do not count. You are taking a chance dealing with us but you can trust us if it makes you feel better” – Like it?
    I bet you do.
    Your business model wont out survive mine.
    Honest, fair, safe and accountable business practices will push people like you out of the market eventually.
    Why don’t you sell drugs to your customers too?

26. Who’s lying about anything? Your post is nothing but a bunch of half-assed strawmen deigned to muddy the discussion.

27. Kyle,
    Are you posting on the forum you thimk you are?
    What is the discussion about? You dont make much sense. Are you a town car driver, taxi driver, bellhop, hotel staff, or a just some lonely 15 year old that wants some attention?

28. Again–personal attacks don’t change the fact that Taxi drivers are befitting from unfair government regulations, they just make you look immature.

29. They’re also benefiting from the regulations… but I figure that’s implied.

30. Kyle is just a friend of the reporter that wrote the “fare warning” article(I looked at his bio, he’s just a mercury forum fan). I guess he is trying to make the discussion more interesting or maybe he is just bored. I think the article was great and the forum is also very revealing. Thank you for entertaining us Kyle.

31. Kyle,
    You got me. You got me to get my point across too. Now go listen to some Conflict or maybe even a Chumbawamba 7″. I’ll give you an Antisect patch and some Crass underwear if you shut up. Smash the state bro.

32. IF ANYONE BOTHERS TO LOOK THROUGH THESE COMMENTS THEY SHOULD READ MR. BOB WAGNERS COMMENT. ITS THE 8th COMMENT. IT EXPLAINS ALOT.

33. Every addition to the comments of this piece assures us that the content remains dynamic. This is exactly what we intended. Even arguments counter to our own will be pulled into a growing body of work used to create an ever larger and more robust discussion about the practices from which we’ve asked the hotels to refrain. We’re confident that the many voices added to this discussion will finally sway opinion to our side. Because of that, we heartily accept any and all dissent knowing full well that it will only work to broaden the discussion and further call into question why the hotels have chosen to defend practices normally considered unethical to most consumers.

    At the time of this posting, the query which combines the terms Portland, Hotels, and Town Cars now returns the Portland Mercury’s “Fare Warning” as the second item in Google’s search index. Once we start issuing press releases designed to alert travelers to the presence of graft at specific hotels, the search indices will drive our discussion to the top of the listings and hold it there indefinitely.

    If I were management at any of Portland’s downtown hotels I’d start aggressively blogging in hopes of creating content worthy of balancing the negative effects of having your brand discussed in such unfavorable terms. But then again, whatever you do, we’ll be right there letting you drag down your own best efforts by reminding readers that you’re still letting low-level employees relieve your guests of $10 every time they ask for transportation to the airport.

34. Well put,Thaddeus. To further bolster your point, I woke up this morning to a piece on OPB that could and probably was scripted from this article and blog. Long live the 5th Estate.

35. Town cars are the best option for most hotel guests. They charge a flat rate, arrive at a scheduled time, and provide the fastest and most reliable way from downtown to PDX. All these accusations of ‘bribery and collusion’ are way out of line. The hardworking, minimum wage earning hotel staff help guests make transportation arrangements everyday. Sometimes that involves a cab, other times it’s a town car, a limo, a jetboat, a coach bus, a pedicab, a shuttle van etc. If the Anonymous Taxi Drivers would learn to speak English, the location of a few popular restaurants, proper grooming, how to use the light on the roof or their cars, how to park in front of a hotel, and how to stay out of the bike lane then they might be a decent option for a hotel guest. The fact that it takes five minutes for the dispatcher to answer the phone and another ten for a cab to show up makes the prearranged town car service an even better option.

36. Luke,
    Your racist/anti-immigrant comments do not change the fact that Portland city law dictates that a town car must charge a minimum of $50.00 to/from the airport. This law is to prevent town cars from under-cutting taxi’s business.
    The hotel GMs were all sent aletter in july 2007 reminding them of this fact and also of rampant illegal town car activity. The reason hotel staff may not know this(they do now) is because the hotel’s do not want to pay their staff more. They may not tell their staff the laws. This makes the hotel GMs active conspirators of this racket. The city and hotel GMs have been turning a blind eye to this for so long you think it is normal. It is not. It is ILLEGAL and DISHONEST!
    Also, I have sat on the stands with my white ass(I only speak english), my top light on, my cab clean, listening to the town car drivers talking on their cell phones in russian, iranian, romanian and other non-english languages. The taxi companies and town car companies both employ people from many countries and with many dialects. All most all of them speak decent english. So, whats your point?
    The reason taxis do not keep the stands covered is because the bellhops and other hotel staff help the town cars to under-cut the taxi’s business by breaking the law and lying to their own customers about the legal price of a town car to the airport. If they told the customer the truth: A TOWN CAR IS $50.00 AND A TAXI IS $26.OO-$33.00 TO THE AIRPORT taxis would be able to make a living working the stands. Presently this is not the case, the bellhops are liars. The hotel staff and city have broken the paratransit industry in downtown Portland by not following and enforcing the rules.
    a,b,c it’s easy as 1,2,3 Luke, you are a chump.

37. Luke, you’re correct. Town cars have been given a flat rate of $50 to the airport. Taxis in downtown Portland also have a flat rate but it’s $26 to the airport. If you’d like to have a premium service, you pay the cost of the premium. In this case the difference is supposed to be $24.

    We’re sure that you agree with us when we say we’d like to make certain that the town car that arrives to pick you up at your hotel has got more going for him than simply his willingness to pay the bellman his $10 bribe.

    The idea that the bell staff is paid minimum wage (whether this is true I don’t know) should raise a great deal of concern with the hotel’s guests because it means that being fired entails only a lateral move to another minimum wage job in another field. Is this the type of individual you’d trust to secure transportation for yourself or another member of your family? What concern would this low-wage employee have for ensuring that your driver had a business license and commercial insurance? The simple answer is that he or she doesn’t care! Regardless of what the driver’s status might be, the bellmen still receive the same kickback. Furthermore, as licensed and regulated town cars are undercut by unlicensed and unregulated cars, the same $10 still finds its way into the pockets of the bellmen.

    It gets really ugly when the concierge says to bellman, “Hey, I see that you’ve put 18 passengers into town cars today. That means you’ve pocketed $180. Now I want my cut.” And with that the bellman has now been taxed by the next player in the syndicate and therefore he has to recoup his money by demanding more kickbacks or else aggressively shielding the hotel’s customers from finding the best possible value for safe and legal transportation. Without proper mediation the first casualty in this rigged system is that of the safety of the hotel’s guests.

38. KICKBACK = COMMISSION! Its part of our industry… why don’t you cabbies get it?

39. The bottom line here, according to city code, is this: 1) Town cars are only allowed to operate by reservation only (I believe this is set at one hour in advance). 2) Town cars must charge substantially more than cabs, this is defined as $50 to the airport from anywhere in fareless square.

    There is widespread disregard for both of these code requirements. These code violations have been documented many times, both by citizens, the media, and even city officials. The city has been made aware of this countless times over many years and has failed to take action. Perhaps there is a lawyer out there somewhere who would be willing to initiate a writ of mandamus to compel the city of Portland to enforce its own rules?

40. Ohhhh Luke…. You poor fool.

    You think you and your bellman friends should be compensated $10 for putting your hand in the air and flagging down a cab or illegal town car? Seriously? You have got to be outta your mind! If you guys actually did something for that $10 I could maybe see the justification, but honestly….keep it real.

    My chauffeurs load luggage, provide client assistance, and then when we get to the hotels end up unloading luggage out of the limousines because the “help” refuses to do it. As a bellman it is usually in the job description to hail cabs, assist with luggage, and provide directions. For that, a person should get a couple of bucks from the client, not the transportation provider.

    If you want to call it a commission, then you should disclose to the customer that the rate they are paying includes a $10 fee to you. If you don’t disclose this fact it is a KICKBACK.

    When I am finally able to service the downtown area I can guarentee that my rates to the airport will be significantly higher than $50 and not a single bellman or concierge will see a dime of the money. Why should I give my profit away to someone who hasn’t done anything. $10 is 20% of a fifty dollar fare and most REPUTABLE limousine and sedan companies only operate on a narrow profit margin after all expenses (fuel, insurance, payroll, maintenance, etc.) are paid. If the hotels want to see cheaper rates to the airport in quality on-demand town cars, then maybe they should invest in their own fleet of cars and hire drivers, pay the insurance and maintenance, and then have those drivers work the door as well.

    A FARE WARNING to the bellman in Portland- the cab drivers and reputable limousine/executive sedan companies are fed up with your BS tactics and things are going to change. If you don’t like what you are hearing I might suggest you start looking for a new job very soon!

41. By commission you must feel that you’ve brokered some sort of transaction for the hotel’s guest. If that’s the case then perhaps you should decline any tip the guest hands you directly and instead notify them that you’ll be taking $10 from them by way of a kickback that you’re charging their driver. But then again the guest might ask why it is that you’re making any money at all on the transaction between them and their driver.

    You see, the only players in this game are the guest, the driver, and the city that regulates the transportation companies. I add the city to this equation because by regulating the flat rates, they’ve seen to it that the guest can rely on a set amount and therefore cut you out of the take. With a zero tolerance policy, hotels can then put you back in your proper position within the staff hierarchy and further assure their guests that a low-level employee can’t pinch money from them when they’re simply looking for regulated transportation that’s both legal and safe. Those are the two qualifying criteria that you’re unable to assess while standing at the front of the hotel opening doors and handling baggage. It just so happens that those are the two most important criteria for the guest of the hotel.

    Luke, if I were you, I’d start trying to figure out what you’re going to do when you’re videotaped quoting illegal flat rates or when you’re subpoenaed to go to court after one of the hotel’s guests are injured in a town car that turns out to be unlicensed and uninsured, driven by a guy that rented the car from Avis and made you believe he was a professional executive car driver by waving $10 in your face.

    But with that said, the fact remains that this is still just a throw away job. What it means is that you can just blame the general manager for making you take the kickbacks and then split them with him or her. The best part of the whole deal might be if you just blow the whistle on your general manager now and then contact the Department of Labor in Salem and request protection as a whistle blower. The way this scandal is set to proceed means that you could reference an ongoing investigation in which management is trying to coerce you into doing something that you’ve known all along was both unethical and illegal. Just to protect yourself even further, I recommend taping the conversations between yourself and management. To be extra safe start keeping a log of all the occasions on which the general manager of your hotel has demanded that you take kickbacks. In the end it might help your argument if everyone knew that you only did it because the general manager made you do it. Don’t take the fall for some bigwig! They wouldn’t take the fall for you.

    On a related note, I’ll add this; it really doesn’t matter what you might be losing your job over. You could be drinking at work, excessively late, taking too many sick days, etc. But, if you’re inside this kickback circle just blame it all on management and argue that they made you do it and they took a cut of everything you took from the drivers. Being that the activity is so prevalent only makes your accusation that much more believable. At this point, management can’t feign ignorance so it’ll look like they’re in on the take as well. But hey, I’m just speculating so I’ll leave the rest to you.

42. I still have yet to see any of the windbags defend your government sanctioned Cartel…

43. Hi Kyle,
    How many different blogs have you commented on today? You should move to Dubai – no regulations. The Ayn Rand Institute needs you bro. Go blog there.

44. Kyle is right! What makes cabs so special? What is the difference between a ride to the airport in a towncar and a ride to the airport in a taxi? Why should there be two prices?

45. Luke- Kyle’s argument posits a theory that says if someone has the means to provide transportation at any price, they should be given unfettered access to whatever marketplace they choose. Though his argument is compelling, it has very little to do with the current state of affairs in Portland. His model says that if you call for a cab in an emergency and I’m the driver that shows up, it is well within my rights to base my cost to you on how much you’re willing to pay for my services. Say you’re 20 miles from your destination and I you quote $100 for what would normally be a $48.50 metered ride. Sure, you can weigh your options and either accept or decline my offer or you can call another provider and repeat the same steps. Remember, you’re in a time-critical situation. Because of reasons just like this, cities have determined that it is in the best interest of society, as a whole, to set fares that can be relied upon whatever the situation might be. In smaller markets or rural areas, you’re at the mercy of whomever it is that tries to play a part in your willingness to pay for a ride. In larger cities, this model falls apart because we have to be able to rely upon the mobility of the greatest number of persons at a set rate. Now I can wish for an open marketplace, just like Kyle, or else I can turn my energies toward those that are gaming a system that regulates my behavior but not that of my competition.

    The reason for the different flat rates comes from the idea that the city recognizes consumers want a choice. In a free market, choice is the greatest thing a consumer has going for him. But to make sure that the downtown area is sufficiently serviced, the city steps in and says to the visitor, “Just to make your stay in Portland go as smoothly as possible, we’ve allowed for a taxicab flat rate of $26 from your hotel to the airport.” This way, the visitor knows that whatever the distance, whatever the road conditions, whatever the level of ethical behavior the driver possesses, the rate is set and from it the driver won’t vary. Conversely, the flat rate for the town car comes from the idea that the consumer again has a choice. Remember what I said about choice? Choosing to pay more means choosing to get more and in doing so, you pay a premium. The city hasn’t said, “We need more taxis or taxi-like transportation providers.” What they said was that the consumer will have a choice and with that choice will come a rate schedule that differs sufficiently enough to provide for the taxis, the town cars, and the consumers.

    Notice how I again left you out of the above equation? As a doorman that takes kickbacks, your only concern is that the consumer is relieved of $10 so that you can game the closed transportation system. Who benefits from your presence in any transaction? It isn’t the town car that makes 10 less dollars and then drives his competition to undercut the flat rates. It isn’t the cab whose rate you hide from the consumer to pay your kickback. And it isn’t the consumer who pays for a $50 ride but really only paid $40 to the driver and $10 to you. Was the cost $50 or $40? Will it become $30 and eventually $20? Do you care who it is that drives the hotel’s guest to the airport? No, because you’ll always get your $10 no matter who’s doing the driving.

    Like I advised you before, start recording all the times that the general manager of your hotel has forced you to take kickbacks from unlicensed and unregulated town cars. In due time they’ll be brought to task and fired for their disregard for the company’s reputation. Believe me, the Hotel Lucia, the Westin, The Benson, The Marriott, The Vintage Plaza, the Heathman, and any others who feel it’s wise to allow their guests to fall prey to uninsured drivers will ask why they never put and end to this earlier.

    Before I finish, let’s do some math. $10 per guest at 20 guests per day equals $200 paid to the doorman. That means that you’ve made $1000 for a 5 day workweek or about $4000 a month and roughly $48,000 for one year’s haul. $48,000 per year in kickbacks paid to a doorman? I’m guessing, and I could be wrong, that that money is being pooled by several employees. Has anyone bothered to notify the IRS? Luke, if you were asked in an IRS audit to declare your yearly wage, what figure would you give? I wonder what figure the concierge would give and for that matter what figure would the general manager give. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

46. Your analysis of cabs under the free market is flawed, Thaddeus, because you assume the consumer would put up with your floating price system. The reality is that it would be the cabbie who named the price upfront whom the consumer would end up hiring. No one would hire a cab from a service that sent out the kind of guy you described.

    And even if, for some reason, a city decided it wants to require cabbies to be certified and put a cap on what they can charge, there is NO reason for it to impose a maximum fair, or artificially limit the number of cabs on the street.

    The latter regulations serve only to help some cabbies inflate their fairs, and to keep more poor people from finding private employment.

    The fact is that cabbies pay the city money and the city provides the cabbies with protection. It’s a fucking racket!

47. That should be “reason for it to impose a minimum fair”.

48. Hi Kyle,
    Still lonely? Want some attention?
    The minimum fare is $50.00 to/ from pdx for Town Cars. They lower their minimum fare as to under-cut the taxi industry. I hate being regulated just as most people do! The town cars are not as close to being as regulated as taxis are. We have a meter.
    And Kyle, the town cars pay the city money too! You must get your info from the guys that rent town cars from Avis or Hertz and act like they run a professional business. They fooled you too. But dont let me stop you. You can start your own transportation business with your moms car or even your bicycle. Just give the doorman $10 bucks.
    Now go back to another blog that you understand. You make no sense in this forum.

49. This is a great opportunity to outline the dilemma of fluctuating prices in a climate of hyper-inflation. Kyle, say I’m a baker and each day the cost of a loaf of bread has to be readjusted for inflation. Today it costs $1.00 but tomorrow it might cost $2.00 and the next day $3.00. As a consumer the only thing you see is that the price of bread continues to rise each day yet there seems to be no explanation as to why. So since you don’t know the answer you ask me, the baker. I, in turn, explain to you that the cost of unregulated wheat has risen each day. With this the cost of unregulated electricity to operate my ovens has risen as well. I further explain that the owner of the building in which I rent my bakery has increased the amount of unregulated rent that I must pay. To each of these answers the only thing you’re thinking is that fixed, regulated costs would save you from having to pay more for bread. Now if you’re so obtuse as to simply argue that you’d either bake your own bread or find another baker than it’s reasonable to assume that you’re not able to scale your thinking beyond the microcosm.

    Now, the idea that consumers can drive an unethical transportation provider out of the marketplace by simply taking their money elsewhere is definitely compelling. I think we agree that the guy I described should be exposed and his actions should made public for all to see. Now isn’t that what we’re doing here? Don’t forget Kyle; the more you comment, the more traction you give this piece. Right now, it’s the Mercury’s most commented upon article. Keep talking and we’ll just let the natural laws of search engine optimization work their magic. Like I said, the query for “Portland, Hotels, and Town Cars,” now returns this page as number one in Google’s index.

50. And now the linking begins
    http://nztaxiblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/fare-warning-cabbie-accuse-hotel-bellhops-of-shady-scheme/

    http://nztaxiblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/meter-running-on-portlands-town-car-drivers/

51. You’re not going to suffer notable inflation just because someone arbitrarily decides to raise the price of a good. If wheat prices start rising at the rate you describe, then the number of people growing wheat is going to explode. Supply is going to go up and prices are going to drop. It’s Econ 101–and considering all the bigs words you use, I think you know it. You’re just trying to muddy the discussion because you’ve realized there’s no justification for minimum pricing or taxi number restrictions.

    “Now isn’t that what we’re doing here?”
    It’s what I’m doing, anyway.

52. Let’s follow Kyle’s line about Econ 101. Supply goes up and prices go down. This activity continues indefinitely always approaching but never reaching zero. At what point does the growing of wheat no longer provide any value to the producer?

    Kyle’s idea is that there should be no barriers to entry in any field save, I would assume, those that might require a higher level of technical proficiency. His pleas about how private enterprise, regulated by the state, to create the semblance of competitive advantage, must be broken open so that the least qualified can be given the opportunity to “try” and compete with established firms who have reached a level of cost advantage by delivering the same service as its competitors but at a lower cost.

    This is specifically why the city has deemed the $26 flat rate for taxis as serving a greater utility than simply cost advantage. By keeping in place an artificially low rate the city is assured that its paratransit mobility concerns remain serviceable by elements in the private sector who benefit from the framework of regulation. If we followed Kyle’s model of infinite supply pushing prices toward zero, the city could in no way assure itself of reliable private-for-hire paratransit. At best it could only assume that providers might remain in the market only as long as competition is kept reasonable constrained.

53. Hi Kyle,
    At least your not hiding the fact that you will lie, cheat, suck and steal to get your way. A lot of us are able to attain our goals honestly through forums like this. Bellboys pimp out town cars. Are you the one on your knees or standing up?

54. Quiet, dumpy, the grownups are talking.

    Thaddeus, the point at which wheat stops making a profit is the point at which people will stop making it. Supply will go down and prices will go back up. (This is still first week econ, read a book)

    The same applies to taxis. If there is a demand for taxis, people will be drive them–as long as they can make the money they want doing it.

    The free market works. Admit it!

55. Kyle & Thaddeus,
    No doubt that in the city of artisan flat bread pizzas wheat is a big issue.
    However, the transportation market of Portland is regulated. The hotels turn a blind eye to the regulations of the town cars and the city does not enforce those regulations.
    Jim Francesconi asked the city parking enforcement to leave the hotel zones alone so that the hotels could continue to disobey the the regulation that town cars have a flat rate minimum of what is now $50.00 to the airport.
    It is not only the hotel staff their GMs and the town cars that are colluding to under-cut the taxi companies. It is also the City of Portland colluding with the hotels to disobey the cities own regulations. It is shameful. Especially in Portland.

56. Kyle dosent even answer Thads questions! Is every business just open for kyle to experiment with and fuck everyone that works in it! Whats up dude?!? Are cabs suppose to charge one rate one day and some other mystrery rate the other day!?! How can I know what Im suppose to pay if the city dosent regulate the cabs?

57. Ask them?

58. Don’t sweat it, Raymond. When it comes to taxis, Kyle’s free-market utopia appeals to very few. Here’s several examples of how inefficient the process of acquiring transportation would become under his total access plan.

    Say you’re a bartender calling a cab for one of your patrons. You’ll stay on the phone and dial as many drivers as you need, just to make certain you learned what the lowest daily rate turned up.

    You’ve just arrived at the airport. Go ahead and ask all the drivers about their rates until you’ve found the one that agrees with you. Perhaps you can take the time to ascend a stage of some sort and hold an impromptu bidding war over your $30 trip.

    Your car won’t start and you’re late for work. Stay on the line and casually ask hundreds of different cab drivers what their best rate is to your destination, eight miles away. Customers and cabbies alike have plenty of time to talk on the phone while haggling over rates. What the hell, a phone bank manned by god knows how many, call-takers are at the ready all working for free. Overhead? What overhead?

    Grandma needs a lift from the grocery store? No problem, tell her to call around. She’ll do fine while she deals with a multitude of different characters, each with their individual fee schedules and an infinite capacity for patience. I mean who wouldn’t take the time to discuss her two mile journey?

    You’re drunk, admit it! It’s too dangerous to drive and you know it! What to do? Hail a cab! Don’t like the rates of the first one that passes? No problem. Wait for the next one and then ask him if he’ll beat the quote of the one that drove away 10 minutes ago. Even if the answer is yes, you can still stick it out for a third cab or see if the first might come back your way.

    And here’s one just for Kyle; You exit your hotel and standing on the sidewalk in front of you are a dozen transportation hawkers, each claiming to provide the best service at the lowest price. Your job is to figure out which one will give you the lowest fare. Halfway to the airport the driver gets a call on his cell phone from a regular customer who pays 3X what you’ve haggled down. Too bad for you because he’s pulling over to the side of the road and emptying his trunk of your suitcases. No worries, he’s not charging you for the trip. What company do you call to complain? Sorry, no signage, no license, no fault of the hotel. That’s just how business is done…in the free-market.

    Does life go more smoothly when your day is filled with the din of fishwives pulling at your cuff from all directions? Do you want quaint notions that harken back to the unrestricted competition of the 19th century or do you want modern sustainable paratransit? Kyle’s prepared for the former. Are you? If not, perhaps you should take Kyle’s advice and read a book.

59. My 2 cents about this sexy conversation.
    Ive heard complaints from town car drivers and taxi drivers about slow business and kickbacks. When we work the downtown hotels we all work in a “hotel deregulation zone”. Remember that. Its been like this for a long time.
    If town cars dont give kickbacks they wont get business. If cabs dont advertise their hearts out and run a clean machine they wont get business. It is an endless competitive merry-go-round and everyone can ride it. Be creative and a professional at whatever you do and you will reap the rewards. Or at least you might make rent on time.

60. Good job steam rolling Kyles weak argument Thaddeus!

61. It blows my mind that the City of Portland puts so much energy and money into a subject matter that is quite frankly not a big deal at all. Maybe if the City of Portland wasn’t getting so much money from the Taxi Union they would care less? And I think the City has forgot that this is “America” the so called “land of opportunity”, where private buisiness’s can charge what ever price they want to a customer. As far as the who kickback situation well that’s another joke. So what if town car drivers are giving bellhops money for providing them with service. Then maybe we should stop tipping all together in the service industry? I just think there are more important matters the City of Portland can put their time and money into other than a town car sting. Maybe like the homeless situation downtown, constant drug problems, theft, so on and so on.

62. Jaki youre about as stupid a fucking moron as ive seen comment on this site. Did you not read the other 60 posts you idiot fuck? Do we elect people to ignore the fucking law? Does the city of portland have the ability to multitask?

63. Correct Raymond,
    Nobody has the right to squash somebody elses business illegally. If town cars are so against charging a premium fee for luxury transportation they should drive a cab. Not steal business from taxis in a shady way involving bribery, collusion and lying to their customers. Not to mention skimming $10-$15 bucks off their customers fare. Here is a recent article from Las Vegas about the same dishonest crap:
    http://lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2008/07/17/news/local_news/iq_22747638.txt

    This Vegas cabbie is taking the hotels, casinos, limo/town car companies to court for this racket on July 21st, 2008!!! At the least it will create a PR problem for the hotels and town car/ limo companies. Somebody needs to take out a class action suit here in Portland. There are laws and the hotels and town car companies do not follow them. As has been proven recently. Will a Tort Of Civil Conspiracy case fly in Oregon? Does anyone know if Oregon recognizes the Tort laws? Either way the laws concerning this issue are being shit on by the Portland hotels and the city.

64. Why have regulations at all? Let’s start with safety. Suppose Kyle and his Rush Limbaugh loving buddies got their way. Soon you would have several hundred one car taxi “companies” roaming the streets. How is the city going to ensure the public that all these cars are safe, insured properly, safely maintained, driven by drivers who speak English (oh, wait…. ), know how to get places, and are not child molesters or rapists?

    How about service? What kind of service can a one car taxi (or town car) “company” offer? Well, you could get in line at the airport. That’s just what we need, instead of waiting 2 hours to get a fare they could wait 4 or 5, then go berserk when the passenger only wants to go to NE Portland. Or, you could hang around downtown and hope for some hotel action. Let’s see, what could you do to help your chances with the doormen?

    Thanks to right wing propagandists like the Cascade Policy Institute several cities actually were persuaded by the “free enterprise” argument and conducted their own grand experiment in taxi deregulation. It was a horrible disaster for every one of them.

    In Seattle, which is perhaps the best model for us to look at, waiting time for service in the suburbs went from 15 minute averages to over 2 hours – 6 months into the process. The downtown hotels had so many problems with both cabs and town cars that they had to start their own inspections and issue approved provider stickers. Hmm, that smacks of regulation. Heaven forbid! That’s un-American. Anyhow, after a couple years of this unmitigated clusterf*ck Seattle re-regulated the private transportation industry and now has controls far beyond what Portland is proposing.

    Here’s where the problem becomes obvious to everyone except the feeble-minded Kyles of the world. Taxi companies have a rather large regulatory burden, and rightly so, for the sake of public safety and convenience. They have to have a minimum fleet size so they are able to provide service throughout the city. They must operate 24/7. They must have a million dollar commercial insurance policy. They must have 10% of their fleet wheelchair accessible, at cab rates. There are restrictions on the age of their vehicles and what types they can use. They must be uniformly painted with signage. The list goes on.

    Town cars, on the other hand, have a minimum such regulations, and the ones they do have are so poorly written that they are barely enforceable. If town cars were subjected to some reasonable level of regulation as they are in other cities the fareless square to PDX rate would probably be un-necessary. The legitimate town car companies that are operating responsibly and are actual businesses suffer the same as the taxis at the hands of jerks like Kyle with his Avis town car and cell phone.

    Some minimal requirements along these lines would go a long way towards insuring that town car companies had some legitimate overhead and thus must charge premium rates. How about a fleet size of at least 10 cars? How about an established bricks and mortar place of business, manned every day by staff with regular office hours? How about a garage where the town cars must wait until 15 minutes before their reservation? (How about actually having a reservation?) How about affiliations with luxury wheelchair lift vans so they can service the disabled rich elite? How about drivers that at least wore suits and ties? At some point they would not be able to get by charging $30 to the airport and kicking back $10 of it to the doorman.

65. The crooks involved in this racket will always blame the victims. They can’t justify what they do, because it is illegal. They can only whine about it and wish there were no regulations. Regulations get in the way of crooks shady schemes. The hotels and the illegal town car drivers do not care at all about their customers safety. Especially as they are being conned into an illegal town car leaving the hotel to be driven far away from any liability to the hotel GMs. Or are they free from liability… Probably not.

66. HOLY CRAP BATMAN!!!

    I can see this has gotten good. As a legit limousine/executive sedan operator in Portland I must add my most recent comments and put the Marriot City Center on blast for their shady racket they have going.

    This past Sunday I had a pre-arranged pickup for 2 clients to the airport at 9AM. I had these clients for their arrival to PDX and a 6 hour limousine reservation on the previous Thursday. When I arrived to pick up these clients the doormen at THE MARRIOT CITY CENTER informed me the clients left in a black sedan 10 minutes earlier. When I spoke to the client (at the airport no less) she told me she walked outside to see if my car was there and checked in with the doormen. She said she had a “limo” (common industry reference to black car service) to the airport and the doormen directed her to a waiting towncar from PORTLAND EXECUTIVE CAR. The driver (notice I didn’t say chauffeur) told her he was there to pick her up. They loaded up the car and my client said she noticed about half way to the airport that the car wasn’t very clean and the driver wasn’t very professional. When they got to the airport my client said that everything was taken care of by (boss) at (company). The driver said, “no you need to pay me” That is when she realized she had been put in an illegal town car. The client finally paid the driver but was furious.

    When I got all the details from the client she said that the driver only charged her $45 from downtown to the airport. GEEEZ that is lower than the %50 mandated fare.

    What makes me furious about this scenario is I want to market my luxury services (executive sedan / limousine) to the hotels downtown. It can only make our visitors like Portland that much more. But the “door-whores” only want the service that benefits them. I hate to say it, but it is only a matter of time before someone gets put into an illegally operating sedan in the Downtown area and it gets into a wreck and the “client” is SOL because the guy didn’t have the proper insurance (or any commercial insurance at all).

67. LT,
    Jesus freakin criminy! They’re taking hostages now! Most of these wanna be gentlemen dont know about the courtesy to ask if a customer already has a reservation. I’ve seen some of these doormen under pressure making the customer look uncomfortable. Between the trolling wanna be town car driver and the ever persistent doorman the customer is trapped.
    Wait! An open door… Into the town car or limo or whatever! Just get in! Reservation or not off they go.
    Remember, the crook will try to blame the victim. I have a hunch the doormen and the driver will blame the customer.
    Again, another example of the hotels lack of hospitality as their customer is leaving their door.
    Thanks for staying with us! Be careful, its a free market out there. Our responsibility for you stops right outside our door. This town car is $35-$45, it may be insured. You may be also. Maybe I have a bridge to sell somebody.

68. Ah this is an interesting conversation.

    So I use to drive taxi, in Clackamas, but was also licensed to pick up in Portland. I also have spent time in Lima, Peru where unlicensed, unregulated cabs are prolific.

    First I would like to see that anybody who applies for a license and passes the regulations should receive a license. I do believe that there should be a higher test for receiving a public transport license, such as knowing the general area.

    I would hate for the general transport market to be unregulated. I use to have barter with taxis in Lima over the price. This was great if you knew where you were going, really hard if you didn’t. You would have to let the first three taxis go just to make sure you were not being screwed.

    Any time you are paying a percentage of your sales to an outside entity for preferential treatment this is a bribe/kickback. A commission is when you pay an employee a percentage of sales to encourage additional revenues. So if a doorman was signing up customers for the day spa at the hotel and receiving a percentage that is one thing. If the doorman is charging cars for the right to pick up customers, this is a kickback.

    In the end it sounds like town cars also need placards to distinguish them between informal cars. Taxis are in disrepair in Ptown, this is very easy to see. They probably be subjected to an annual inspection. I always kept my cab clean and fresh. I have however boarded some nasty cabs in Portland.

69. I only read about 10 comments. As a taxi driver (and many who commented are not) I side with Matt Davis’ arguements. The burden lies on the hotels and the doormen in the end… The city will regulate what they can which will alleviate a problem that has gotten way out of hand- town cars skimming off all the good rides for bribe money and shorting their customers at the same time. all hate mail to schoenblum hotmail dot com

70. Jeez,
    Only 69 comments? Well here is 70.
    Hopefully the city will do all they can. Either way the GMs of the Portland hotels who choose not to conduct business in an honest and transparent way are going to have their scummy, shady dealings tied to their names forever. Luckily not all of the hotels downtown are that naive. Portland needs to stay NICE. Thats what 99% of the tourists in my cab say about Portland. “Everyone is so nice!”. It gets on a few peoples nerves, but most people find it pleasantly shocking.
    Skimming money off of your customers transportation costs to pay your doormen, valet and other staff(does the GM get a cut?) is not NICE. It’s MEAN. Liar and low-life, leech, scumbag also comes to mind.

71. I drive a taxi. I’ve been asking every hotel customer I pick up how they would feel if the bellmen quoted them a price for transportation and then pocketed $7-$15 off of the top of their fare. So far every single customer I ask does not feel comfortable with this secret kickback.
    One customer staying at The Hotel Lucia told me that it pisses him off to know that every time he tipped the bellman $5 leaving the hotel, the bellman was taking another $10 from the town car drivers fare. He also said the hotel bellmen would do better by him if they just charged him $15 for checking out and the driver charged him $25.00 for the ride. Funny.
    Some people feel comfortable getting “Pimped Out”. On the other hand, almost every customer does not like being lied to when it involves their money.

72. Luxury Transportation,
    Some of you town car drivers that have been pushed out, or had your fare stolen by another town car or hotel bellmen should share your story with this reporter. I mean the guy did do a story about it.

73. why are we subsidizing the cab industry? shouldn’t the market just work itself out — ie let the cheapest fares win?

74. Wow Allen! Why don’t you go back and read the last 72 fucking posts in this thread. Give everyone a fucking break and do some homework if you even fucking care!

75. Allan,
    Your subsidizing the cab industry? Where do I collect my subsidy?
    We can work it that way though brother.
    Taxis are allowed to park in hotel zones for 15 minutes.
    Listen up cabbies.
    If you are up 1st on the stand and see some potential customers coming out pull up in front of the hotel and park it. You have 15 minutes to advertise yourself. Offer a lower fare than the town car. If you time it right you may get a fare.
    If you see a doormen hail a town car from across the street or wherever, pull up in front of the hotel and offer a lower price to the customer. Town cars are not supposed to be flagged down anyways. They must have a reservation. If anything this will help to keep the doormen honest.
    Taxis can park in front of any hotel for 15 minutes. Just don’t cut in front of another cabbie on the stand.
    This is good advice coming from ParkedAtYourFeet.

76. Wow. All you “free market” idiots must be celebrating now. De-regulation probably really benefited you. Can I borrow some cash? Don’t worry your going to make off like a bandit! Open the market! So we can all get rich!
    What a great idea you idiots. The only free market that would work is if everything was free. Dimwits.

77. Uh…why doesn’t the city put this matter to rest for good by deregulating the town-cars and then regulating the taxis and town-cars equally? Taxis will still have a cost advantage and consumers will benefit.

78. Uh… Because Town cars were introduced to the market as luxury transportation not as different looking taxis. The town car drivers who operate like taxis by discounting their services should be driving taxis not budget town cars.

79. We are having the same problem in New York. The Tarrytown Marriott staff get kickbacks from “illegally operated” taxis, fancy towncars with taxi plates (and 500K miles on them).

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