Big company argues against deregulating LV taxi industry

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2000 | 11:08 a.m.

Las Vegas's largest taxi company took the offensive Wednesday against deregulating the industry, though there is no deregulation plan on the table.

Yellow-Checker-Star Cab Corp. called a news conference to blast a civil liberties law firm that is associated with a different Las Vegas transportation industry.

The Washington D.C.-based Institute for Justice has taken up the cause of independent limousine drivers seeking to be licensed to operate in Nevada.

Officials with the Institute for Justice said they were surprised to be cast as the villain in the matter since they haven't considered leading the charge to deregulate the taxi industry in Nevada.

"Our job is to protect the right of the entrepreneur to earn an honest living," said Deborah Simpson, an Institute for Justice lawyer who is one of the attorneys in a suit against the Transportation Services Authority of Nevada.

The Institute for Justice recently financed the appeal of John West, a former Las Vegas limo driver who had his application for a certificate to operate AAA Limousine in Nevada turned down by the TSA. A decision on the appeal is expected to be considered by the TSA next month or in March after a two-day hearing last week.

Yellow-Checker-Star was one of the intervenors in West's appeal hearing.

The Institute for Justice also has filed suit in District Court challenging the TSA's limousine certification process. That case is expected to be heard in June.

"The rules on taxis overlap those on limousines," said John Kramer, vice president for communications for the Institute for Justice. "But with all this being said, we haven't done anything on taxicabs in Nevada."

But it was clear that Yellow-Checker-Star was targeting the Washington organization in a release it issued Wednesday.

"This is the first step in a campaign to expose the dangerous, uninformed and irresponsible position taken by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice with regards to their efforts to deregulate the taxi industry in Las Vegas," the release said. "Our goal is to educate and alert the public.

"The East Coast-based group of libertarian lawyers have embarked on a clever plan of media manipulation which, if successful, would result in a catastrophe for the image of Las Vegas worldwide."

Bill Shranko, director of operations for the cab company that has 550 vehicles in its fleet and has the authority to operate 430 of them at any one time, said 23 cities have tried deregulating their taxi cab industries and 18 of those have retreated because it hasn't worked.

Kramer said three cities that currently have deregulated taxis -- Denver, Indianapolis and Cincinnati, Ohio -- worked with the Institute for Justice.

"In Denver, we litigated on behalf of three entrepreneurs who wanted to start their own cab company," Simpson said. "The state Legislature there recognized there was a problem and worked on a law to open up the market.

"Once that was enacted, the mayors of Cincinnati and Indianapolis invited us in."

"The way we see it," Kramer said, "we're three for three. And now, they ask themselves why they didn't do it (deregulate) sooner."

Shranko said there was no single incident that pushed his company to take the offensive on the deregulation issue. The Las Vegas Review-Journal published an editorial calling for cab drivers to back deregulation in response to the Nevada Taxicab Authority approving a 10-cent-per-mile rate increase effective March 1. But that's been the only call for deregulation.

Shranko said the regulation of the cab industry, which was sought by Las Vegas' resort industry in the late 1960s in the wake of labor strife and violence, protects the riding public as well as the industry.

Regulation, he said, prevents price gouging and bartering, assures that drivers are properly trained and that vehicles are safe. Deregulation cuts into drivers' pay, Shranko said, because it encourages more cabs on the road and divides the total fares between more drivers.

The Institute for Justice contends that a regulated industry puts a monopolistic lock on the market by the existing cab companies. Kramer said his organization supports inspections of vehicles and insurance requirements, but not the financial scrutiny imposed by the TSA and the Taxicab Authority.

The organization contends that the system of allowing competitors to intervene in the certification process permits them to protect their own pocketbooks and prevent competition from entering the market.