March 17, 2008 — St. John's taxi industry is plagued with problems, taxi drivers and officials said Monday at a town meeting called by St. John Administrator Leona Smith.
"You've got to get out of the old way of doing things," said Taxi Division Director Judith Wheatley.
About 60 people attended the meeting at the St. John Legislature. Taxi drivers and others painted a picture of drivers who fight among themselves, have issues with other taxi associations and provide poor service to passengers.
"I've been hearing these charges over and over," said Sen. Carmen Wesselhoft, a former taxi driver who served on the St. John Taxi Association board.
It's "hurtful," she said, that the taxi drivers fail to police themselves at the Cruz Bay taxi stand, but manage to do so at the Trunk Bay taxi stand because the V.I. National Park won't put up with problems.
"I've seen members throw rocks, pull a machete and curse the past licensing commissioner in front of passengers," Wesselhoft said.
The St. John Taxi Association holds the concession to operate at the Cruz Bay ferry dock. This prevents non-members from soliciting fares within 50 feet of the dock.
At issue for the St. John Taxi Association members are taxi drivers who don't belong to the association but pick up passengers within the concession area. Two drivers were singled out as troublemakers because they pick up passengers for tours when the passengers don't have the requisite vouchers, taxi drivers said.
"These two have harassed St. John Taxi for 15 years plus," said Earl Thomas, current president of the St. John Taxi Association.
Complaints were also made that other drivers affix the Westin name to their taxis although they did not work out of the Westin Resort and Villas taxi stand. But taxi driver Hayden Smith said the signs say "Taxi to the Westin" and are not the same as the signs used by the drivers that work at the hotel.
"We put 'Taxi to the Westin' because that's where we're going," Smith said. The drivers remove the signs when they're going elsewhere, he said.
The practice opens the door to trickery, said Fred Norford, who serves as legal counsel at Licensing and Consumer Affairs, which oversees the Taxi Division. "And trickery can come back to haunt you," he said.
Other taxi drivers complained about the "quick" tours some of their colleagues provide while charging the full tour price.
Edmond Roberts, a retired National Park Service ranger who started his park career on St. John, said he would like to work with the taxi drivers to educate them about the attributes of the national park.
"But if there's training, how many are going to participate?" he asked.
Norford read a roster of taxi rules drivers must follow. In discussing the rules, he noted that a taxi driver tried to charge the regular passenger rate for a blind person's seeing-eye dog.
He also told the drivers they cannot refuse anyone a ride.
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