Monday, Aug. 4, 2003 | 10:52 a.m.
On a recent Saturday night dozens of taxicabs lined the curbs under the blinking lights of the Rio, and John Hoffman drove by slowly, looking at each one of them.
Several cabdrivers nodded at him. A few smiled. Most stared at him warily.
"Some of them see us as the enemy," Hoffman said.
Hoffman, a former police lieutenant in Massachusetts, is a senior investigator with the Nevada Taxicab Authority. It's the only taxi authority in the nation that is part police department and part regulatory body.
Its 28 investigators in Clark County have full police powers, carry guns and badges, and patrol the streets in marked vehicles. All have worked as detectives, sergeants or in higher positions at traditional local or state police agencies.
"We're just like any other law enforcement agency," Taxicab Authority Administrator Yvette Moore said. Except the beat is taxicabs.
Investigators handle all taxicab-related crimes jointly with the local, state or federal law enforcement agencies. One Taxicab Authority officer recently arrested two young men on charges of robbing a cabdriver and shooting him in the head.
The authority's officers also investigate cab drivers, and routinely write citations for violations such as high-flagging, which is leaving the meter turned off and pocketing the customer's fare, and long-hauling, which is taking a customer to a destination via a longer -- and more costly -- route.
A lot of Las Vegas' cabbies used to try to give Russ Franks the long hauls, "but that hasn't happened in years," the 59-year-old New Yorker said on his most recent visit.
He has come to Las Vegas many times in the past 35 years and said that from a customer's perspective the taxi business has been cleaned up considerably in recent years.
Regulating industry
Driving a cab in Las Vegas was "a no man's land" before the Taxicab Authority was established by the state Legislature in 1969, Joe Dahlia, another senior investigator, said. Competition was so fierce that some drivers resorted to violence and attacked each others' cars.
"The Legislature stepped in and said, 'Not in Nevada,' and they created a body of law" regulating the industry, Moore said.
In Nevada a Taxicab Authority can operate only in counties with a population of 400,000 or more. That means only in Clark County.
It's funded through the collection of annual fees of $100 per cab and 15 cents per taxicab trip.
The county has 16 cab companies, more than 1,650 cabs and about 4,570 drivers.
Other places have government agencies that regulate the taxicab industry and police officers who handle taxicab crimes as they occur, but no other city or county has a taxicab authority that does both.
San Diego, New Orleans and Calgary, Alberta, have sent representatives to Las Vegas to study the Taxicab Authority and to explore the possibility of implementing similar agencies, Moore said.
Bonnie Steves gave the idea of a taxicab-only enforcement agency a timid endorsement as she stood waiting by herself at the Desert Passage shopping complex on Thursday night.
"Obviously the police have a lot of other things that are more important and intense," she said. But as she continued to wait, waving fruitlessly as one empty taxicab after another passed her by, Steves added that she has found taxi travel in Las Vegas to be a constant aggravation.
"In New York I put my hand out and I have a cab, and I spend half the money to do it. And there's some kind of unwritten rule here that obviously I know nothing about, because I'm standing here like an idiot."
Her alternative, she found, was to traverse the length of Desert Passage and join a line of more than 100 people at the taxi stand outside the casino lobby.
"Obviously (the Taxicab Authority) is not functioning," she complained.
She was right to blame the Taxicab Authority for her frustration, Hoffman said. It enforces a rule that restricts taxi pickups to cab stands in some casino and hotel areas, such as along the Strip. Cabbies can get cited for picking up passengers who are not at a cab stand.
In the restricted areas people often "wave their arms and don't understand why the cabs don't stop," Hoffman said.
Patrolling downtown on a recent night, Hoffman looks for cabbies who are skirting the rules. It doesn't take long for him to spot a North Las Vegas driver outside the Plaza trying to pick up passengers.
Hoffman pulls his white Ford Explorer up to the cab and jumps out.
"You can't operate here with that medallion," he said, referring to the metal place affixed to the side of the cab authorizing it to be operated within a certain area.
Sitting in his vehicle and writing the cabbie a citation for a certificate violation, Hoffman said, "She's restricted to north North Las Vegas. It sounds like I stutter, but I mean the north part of North Las Vegas."
At Ogden Avenue and Casino Center Drive, Hoffman spots a cab stopped at a green light, blocking traffic. As angry drivers honk their horns, Hoffman rolls down the window and tells the cabbie to move and pull over down the block.
"I've probably written 500 violations at Ogden and Casino Center," Hoffman says as he filled out a citation for impeding traffic. A cab stand is around the corner, and drivers tend to sit at the light, even if it's green, waiting for the line of cabs to clear so they can pull in.
"They think it's their God-given right to sit there," Hoffman said. "They'll say, 'I'm a cabdriver. I'm just trying to make a living.' "
A few years ago, investigators began a probe into allegations that strip club doormen, looking for a competitive edge, were paying kickbacks to cabbies to steer business their way, even though the customer might have asked to be taken to a different strip joint.
To quell that kind of activity, investigators regularly do sting operations, Moore said.
But the "hot topic" now, she said, is doormen at hotels who divert people from cab stands into limousines, claiming a limo ride would be cheaper. Limo drivers allegedly tip doormen for the business.
A solution to this is in the works, Moore said.
The Taxicab Authority and the state Transportation Services Authority, which regulates limos, are drawing up an interlocal agreement that would put the limos under the jurisdiction of the Taxicab Authority. That would give the Taxicab Authority the power to penalize limousine drivers who do this.
Investigators also conduct undercover stings to catch drivers who commit drug-related offenses, Dahlia said.
From time to time customers will call the Taxicab Authority to report that a driver had offered to take them to a place where they could buy drugs. Investigators pose as a customers occasionally to make sure that's not happening, Dahlia said.
"They say, 'We know where to score this, we know how to score that,"' Dahlia said. "This is not the type of thing you want drivers doing."
Cabbie court
Drivers who get cited must appear before a Taxicab Authority hearing officer for an arraignment and, if they contest the charge, they are granted a hearing.
Penalties include a fine, suspension of their permit to drive a cab or revocation of the permit. Investigators also have the option of giving drivers traditional traffic tickets.
Several cabdrivers speaking on condition of anonymity said the hearings are widely perceived as being rigged against the drivers.
Cabdriver Cereca Bowman said the authority "has got its good points and its bad." The court, she said, is among the bad points.
"It's a kangaroo court," she said. "Anybody says something against us, they take their word over ours. ... If somebody robs us, they give us the third- degree, not the benefit of the doubt."
She complained that too often the authority seems to be working for the cab companies instead of the public and the cab drivers. Maybe that's because the cab companies supply the funding for the authority, she said.
But investigators said they have to be skeptical of drivers' claims because they've dealt with cases in which rogue drivers have disappeared with their cabs and gamble away the money collected from passengers, or have stolen fare cash and claimed they were robbed.
Most cab drivers are honest, Hoffman said, but there are some who aren't.
If there's no proof of violence, investigators may have no choice but to take the driver's word for it, but it calls for a thorough probe, he said.
A cabdriver with 27 years of experience who asked not to be named said he appreciates the idea behind the authority -- "Somebody's got to control the cabs in this town" -- but that doesn't mean he trusts it.
"If I gave you my name, they would remember my name," he said. "I don't get involved with them, and that's why I've been around this long. A lot of guys don't last too long because they get involved with them, and then they have problems."
Craig Harris, managing editor of Trip Sheet, a publication dedicated to taxicab industry issues, and a cabdriver in Las Vegas for more than 20 years, said some cabdrivers have "a jaundiced opinion" when it comes to the Taxicab Authority. He said he doesn't think it's totally deserved.
Harris said he's been cited, and he's also been a crime victim. He was recently assaulted, he said. Someone spit in his eye and threw a rock at his cab, he said. Investigators have always handled incidents professionally, and he said he has a good rapport with many of them.
"They've done some good, kick-over-rocks type investigations," Harris said. "Regarding drivers, they can be just as hard-nosed with them. ... If we don't follow certain procedures, they'll nail us."
Because of his position as an editor at Trip Sheet, he hears a lot of complaints about the Taxicab Authority, he said. But keeping that perspective in mind, he said that "by and large, drivers have no problem with them."
Keeping an eye on drivers is an important part of investigators' job, but probing crimes in which drivers were victimized is a much higher priority.
As of May 30 there have been 24 cab driver robberies and one driver, Mark Chavez, shot during a robbery. In 2002 there were 51 robberies; 116 in 2001; and 52 in 2000.
Since the '70s, there have been 15 cabdrivers murdered in Clark County. The most recent homicide was in 1999, when 63-year-old Frederico Baluyot was found beaten to death in his cab.
In 1995 the Taxicab Authority implemented what's considered a very important safety feature on all cabs: A green distress light on the roofs of the cabs. If the light is turned on, it means the driver is in danger and any member of the public who sees it should call 911.
Investigators are there to handle "criminal activity, traffic accidents, lost property, consumer complaints," Dahlia said.
"We are the police force for the taxicab industry. That's the nature of our job," Dahlia added. "We're out there to assist the public and the drivers, and we want the public to know we're out there." They think it's their God-given right to sit there. They'll say, 'I'm a cabdriver. I'm just trying to make a living.' "
archive
