WILDWOOD – It’s just after 11 a.m. Monday morning when the phone rings in Kenneth Lee Jr.’s Yellow Cab.
“That’s the cleanup bartender at the Firehouse Tavern. I’m taking one of the early morning drunks home,” Lee explained, apologizing for interrupting the interview about the deregulation of the cab industry in the Wildwoods.
“I call it the breakfast club,” he said. “That guy is surely not going to take a bus. He’s an old-timer, so he’s not going to an Uber or Lyft. He calls our cab.”
Before Lee arrives at the bar to pick up the short fair over the Glenwood Avenue bridge into West Wildwood, the phone rings again. Lee recognizes the number.
“How you doin,’ Naomi?” Lee asks before chatting with the caller about which of her bank’s branches on the island has the shorter drive-thru teller line at the moment.
“She’s a chambermaid, and she runs her errands in the cab,” Lee explains.
It’s a one-man-band. He is a driver, dispatcher and manager on duty.
Started more than 50 years ago by his parents, Yellow Cab Company, Lee boasts, is the first company that comes up when you Google ‘Wildwood cab’ and, regulars aside, that may well be what is keeping the company in business.
Run by Lee’s sister, Yellow Cab Company’s revenue is down 75% since the inception of Uber, Lee estimates.
“It’s worthless now to even have a cab unless you’ve got a good phone number, like this one,” Lee said.
Once an asset worth close to $25,000, a prized taxi medallion from Wildwood is valued at zero. In fact, it’s not even necessary.
In December 2020, Wildwood Board of Commissioners voted to deregulate the industry (https://bit.ly/3dimfwF). Wildwood had overseen regulation of the cab industry for the whole island, including performing driver background checks.
“Back in the 70s, when the taxis were in their heyday, those licenses were at a premium. Everybody wanted one, but you would have to buy it from somebody who either died or retired from the taxi business,” Lee explained.
Aside from allowing the city to limit the number of cars that could operate in town, the regulations ensured the cars were inspected and background checks were performed on drivers.
Now, expensive commercial insurance is the only thing stopping someone from throwing a “taxi” magnet on their car and driving around town picking up fares, Lee said. For that, there is an easy workaround.
“If he got caught with somebody in the car, it’s just an Uber or a friend,” Lee said a driver could tell the police to get away with only having regular insurance.
Uber and Lyft provide commercial insurance for their drivers while on an active trip and run criminal background checks on all drivers before they can begin driving.
A state statute reads that any cab operating in the state without adhering to state statutes, including insurance regulations, would be guilty of a misdemeanor.
However, there is one part of the statute that the towns seem to be missing. The law allows municipalities not to issue taxi licenses if they choose, but a separate section of the statute states: “No autocab shall be operated along any street in any municipality until the owner thereof shall obtain the consent of the elective governing body or member thereof having control of the public streets in the municipality.”
On most of the island, elected leaders said cabs can continue to operate without the city looking into the vehicles and drivers first. All the due diligence rests on the companies.
In response, Wildwood Crest Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance March 31, requiring cabs operating in the borough to obtain a license through the Crest. The Crest will perform background checks on the drivers as part of the process, but it appears they will be the outlier.
North Wildwood doesn’t seem interested in taking that on, and Wildwood made its position clear – it’s out of the taxi regulating business.
“Trying to strictly enforce taxi laws, to us, was just a fool’s errand. You have 100 Uber and Lyft cars driving around town with zero regulation, and here we are trying to strictly regulate the taxicab companies,” said North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello, in an interview.
When asked if he was concerned it opens the possibility for drivers without a background check to operate cabs in the city, Rosenello put the burden on the state.
“If the state wants to regulate taxis, they should regulate taxis and figure out a statewide taxi license. With Uber and Lyft being out there, it makes no sense for the municipalities to try to control cabs,” Rosenello said, pointing out they are only a small percentage of the cars-for-hire in the city.
Cab companies will still be free to operate, he said.
“It’s not our intention to stop them from operating. We don’t feel that we should be in the enforcement business when you have so many of these other entities out there,” Rosenello said. “I’ve heard stories of Uber and Lyft drivers who have multiple accounts, and they can simply hand their phone off to someone else to run for the night.”
North Wildwood recently placed signs around town advocating for rideshare users to verify their driver’s identity before getting into the car, after a presentation to North Wildwood City Council from a father who lost his daughter when she was abducted and murdered by someone posing as a rideshare driver (https://bit.ly/3sAoj9Z).
Rosenello would not commit to a public relations campaign to make people aware of the change in taxi regulations.
Wildwood Mayor Peter Byron said the regulations were unfair to cab companies since they didn’t apply to rideshare services. He told cabbies at the time, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”
“Honestly, I haven’t really given any further thought with the taxis,” Byron said, in a recent interview. “I really want to stay out of the cab business at this point.”
When asked if he felt responsible, as the mayor, to ensure cabs operating in the city are safe, Byron responded he wants the best for Wildwood’s residents and visitors.
“You never want to put any resident or vacationer in harm’s way, so you always want to do what’s best for the community. How we go about doing that, once you deregulate it, I don’t know, frankly,” Byron said.
Lee explained the regulations checked drivers to “make sure they weren’t criminals or wanted. The cab company, they do an insurance check, and make sure they’re not suspended drivers, bad driving record, wanted.”
Finding those who fit the criteria hasn’t been the easiest thing, Lee said.
“That’s why there are no drivers. It’s just me,” he added.
Which begs the question: With cities leaving it up to the cab companies to investigate the drivers and inferring they don’t intend to enforce the state statute prohibiting unlicensed cabs from operating, who will be behind the wheel next time someone hails a cab in parts of the Wildwoods?
To contact Shay Roddy, email sroddy@cmcherald.com.
