Taxi owner asks Chattanooga Transportation Board to bar Uber

As the Chattanooga City Council mulls new rules to allow taxis and ride-share networks such as Uber to co-exist -- and compete fairly -- one taxi company owner is asking officials to bar the app-based ride company from operating until the rules are enforced.

Tim Duckett, owner of Millennium Taxi Services, sent a complaint and a request for a hearing to the Chattanooga Transportation Board this month.

In one letter, he says Uber is operating outside of current laws and asks the city to file a cease-and-desist order, along with a request for a federal injunction "to disengage [Uber's] computer network app from transmitting request for vehicle for hire services" to its Chattanooga drivers.

In a second letter, he has asked to call Uber before the transportation board to explain why its drivers haven't filed appropriate paperwork with the city.

Despite the new ordinance the City Council is discussing, Duckett said Monday that Uber is breaking laws now on the books.

Current city code broadly states that any "person, firm, partnership or corporation" engaged in the business of "transportation for any person or persons over the streets, roads and public highways of the city of Chattanooga" for any compensation is a vehicle for hire.

And those vehicles for hire have to follow several decades-worth of rules governing vehicle inspections, driver background checks and licensing fees.

Duckett says Uber has been operating in Chattanooga since November without abiding by any of the current rules, and taxi services are hurting for it.

"This is the way that ride-shares work. They just go in, take over a market, forget the rules," Duckett said Monday.

Duckett said he sent the letters to City Inspector Charles Topping on Dec. 4, shortly after Uber started operating.

But City Attorney Wade Hinton said Monday his office had not received the complaint or the request for a hearing.

Transportation Board Chairman J. Bartlett Quinn also said Monday he hadn't seen the documents. But a decision to file any kind of legal proceeding would come from the city -- at the recommendation of Hinton's office.

Quinn said, though, that he could understand Duckett's complaint.

"It does sound to me, just at first blush, that he has some very legitimate complaints," Quinn said.

The transportation board will meet at 3:30 p.m. Thursday. It's unclear whether the complaint or the request for hearing will be discussed.

The City Council will meet at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. today to discuss a first reading of the new transportation bill, which is a combination of two bills first produced by Councilmen Ken Smith and Chris Anderson.

As far as the new ordinance goes, Duckett said Uber or any other ride-share program should have to shoulder the same costs and overhead that taxis are forced to deal with.

"If I had gone to the city council or the transportation board and said, 'Hey, I want to handle all my own background checks, all my own drug tests and use any car I want,' I would have been laughed out of the room," he said. "At the end of the day, somebody's giving a ride for money and you can't self-regulate yourself."

Representatives for Uber did not immediately respond to requests for an interview Monday.

Contact staff writer Louie Brogdon at lbrogdon@timesfreepress.com, @glbrogoniv on Twitter or at 423-757-6481.

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