ABC-7 Xtra: Uber and Taxis

>>> live, where news comes first, this is abc7 extra. >>> welcome, good evening, i’m maria garcia. cities across the country are dealing with a big dilemma: what to do about uber? at the core here: what is the role of government, how much should they or shouldn’t they regulate these industries? uber, an app that puts those looking for a ride in touch with drivers, tells city leaders in a letter that it will pull out of el paso if the city council passes an ordinance putting the company’s drivers in the same category with taxi operators. the app has not only gained popularity since it started in 2014, it’s also provided employment for hundreds of drivers. in austin, uber and lyft are suspending service. voters decided to keep requirements that include fingerprint-based background checks for their drivers. here in el paso, city rep cortney niland says if el paso loses uber, like austin did, it could hurt the economy. she’s convinced requiring uber drivers to have background checks separate from the company would have a huge impact, but cab drivers say the background checks are not an onerous requirement. council will discuss this on tuesday. joing us tonight, city representative cortney niland, border taxi cab company owner joe olivar. you can e-mail us your comments and questions now to abc7xtra@kvia.com. you can also reach us at 915-496-1775. on twitter, use the hashtag #abc7xtra. as we told you, uber has left austin after a vote to require fingerprinting of its drivers. but as abc 7’s darren hunt reports, in dallas, where uber continues to operate under new rules, no fingerprinting is required. >> for a city of our size, having additional transportation options is really important. >> dionne mack is chair of the city of el paso’s transportation for hire committee, tasked with making recommendations to city council that would allow uber to continue to operate in the sun city. >> we actually modeled our plan after dallas. >> where are we at on the fingerprinting aspect of this? >> our process does not include a requirement for fingerprints. >> which is in line with what dallas did? >> correct. >> it’s not the end of the world to have somebody go do a fingerprint background check if you want a job. >> joe olivar is owner of border taxi and he thinks fingerprinting all drivers is a good idea. >> all these regulations are common sense approach regulations. >> at the end of the day, if you don’t think it’s safe, then don’t use it, no one is forcing you to. >> city representative cortney niland doesn’t think fingerprinting, which appears to be uber’s biggest concern, is necessary. >> the last thing you want to see is what happened in austin? >> no i don’t, because what it ended up doing was it’s going to stifle the marketplace. >> some people collect fingerprints and they are for identification in the future, they’re not necessarily being utilized for any type of identification purpose in that background check in the moment, and so from our perspective if it isn’t strengthening the process of doing the background checks and providing us that information, why at this point would we collect something that is not going to be integrated into that verifications process? >> joining us now is el paso city council member cortney niland and joe olivar, the owner of the border taxi cab company. thank you both for being here with us tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you for having us. >> mr. olivar, you heard them saying fingerprints don’t add to the verification process. uber says it already conducts background checks on its own drivers internally. so why the insistence on fingerprints when people say it really won’t add any other level of protection? >> well, you’ve got to be clear in what she stated. she stated that el paso is currently not using those fingerprints for anything other than just taking them. now, i just recently discovered that for the last 40 years my drivers have been going through fingerprint background checks. when that statement became public that led to another question: why then have my drivers been required to do fingerprint checks for the last 40 years at a cost to them if it’s going to be filed away in some drawer center? that’s one issue and i want the answer to that. the important issue when it comes to fingerprinting and i’ve stated that to the individual is that if they think it’s not required then they’ve got to explain to me why it is that the police chief, police chiefs in austin, houston, chicago, new york, boston, atlanta and several other major cities have all stated unequivocally that to do a proper background check, it includes a fingerprint checking, which is a level two background check, much different than just a database check, which is a level one, and i would be happy to give you the documentation supported by law enforcement agencies throughout the country that says a fingerprint background check is 99.8% accurate. a level one check is not. and that’s the difference and we’ve got — if they’re not doing it, if they’re making these guys do fingerprints currently and not do anything with them, that needs to be addressed. >> let’s get to that point first. you need government — you know, government is supposed to provide a level playing field and you have the taxi cab companies saying why have we been paying these fees for the finger based background checks for years and then when, you know, uber comes around it’s like let’s not make uber do that? >> it’s a false pretense to say that by fingerprinting something we’re going to make it safer. it’s not the truth. >> why have you been requiring that of the taxi cab companies? >> i agree with mr. olivar and that’s why we absolutely said look, we’ve had a new marketplace come on board, we’re seeing competion in an industry that we’ve never seen before so they had asked us and the special interest groups representing the taxi cab industry had asked us some of these really poignant questions. why is it necessary for us to do these certain things if it’s not necessarily making the process any safer or any better? and so one of the first things we did was give direction to staff to revisit this ordinance. we realized the ordinance hasn’t been revisited since the late ’80s and there are tons of different policies in this that don’t necessarily make sense in today’s industry. and so that’s some of the things we have asked staff to come back with and say hey, listen if we can reduce some of the regulations, the fees, if we can reduce some of the processes that’s not making it as competitive for them and it’s not making the process any safer or better for the consumer, then we need to act. that’s why we’re doing this. >> uber not a tiny technology startup anymore. they are a multibillion dollar corporation in several countries. and there’s a lot of commentary that they need to accept public oversight in areas of like employment law, safety regulation, in the cities where they operate. >> this is a different marketplace for me. it’s no different than wireless versus land lines in the ’90s. you’re having technology grow so fast that the law hasn’t caught up with it. you could have had regulators killed what we have in our smart phones and technologies today. thank god they didn’t. thank god they didn’t. we have the same thing today. you can say that they’re both delivering the same service but they’re completely different business models and so they need to be treated differently. a vehicle for hire is one thing. a transportation network company is another. and this industry is growing so rapidly that it’s imperative for us as regulators to give the marketplace the support it needs so that it can grow and so that it can serve its consumers but at the same time, if there’s an industry that’s trying to compete, that has been onerously regulated, let’s do what we can as far as deregulation to help them compete but i worry and i caution us overregulating because you haven’t seen a municipality, a state, a nation, anyone get this right yet. everyone’s ended up in lawsuits, in referendums, everyone’s ended up in loss of service. no one’s gotten this right yet. what i’m hoping is the city of el paso working alongside with the vehicle for hire industry and working alongside the transport network company, we can do something that will be great for the entire marketplace and help them flourish and that’s the goal. >> doesn’t overregulation by government stifle business growth? as a businessman wouldn’t you agree that that’s accurate? >> i agree 100% that overregulation stifles business without a doubt. i will say when it comes to safety measures, when it comes to who gets into the vehicle, when it comes to knowing who’s driving the vehicle there’s a place for safety measures. we’ve had safety measures in place for the last 40 years. nothing has changed. we’re still driving people from point a. to b. what i want the people of our community to know and it needs to be made very clear is that when somebody picks up a individual late at night, we have girls that go out partying, they get picked up by tncs, by ubers, taxis, it’s important, it’s critical to know who’s driving that vehicle. >> but it’s a risk that as a consumer they’re willing to take by pressing on that button on the app? nobody’s forcing them to. >> that’s a true statement. >> this is all about consumer choice. this should be about liberty. this should be about freedom. and to say that you don’t know who’s coming, that’s absolutely false. in the application through uber you actually see the person’s picture, you see their driver’s license plates, you can track the way that you’re going to move throughout the entire trip and so i find it actually much safer for myself and i feel much more knowledgeable as a consumer knowing exactly what i’m getting into but ultimately, it’s a risk that i should be able to assume and that that i should be able to take if i want to. no government should be able to tell me what i can and can’t do. >> i think that logic is flawed on so many levels. one, if our city officials are correct in saying that fingerprinting is not a necessity, then they must be smarter than the chiefs of police in the cities that i stated earlier because they have all said we want to know who’s driving these vehicles. the only way to do so is with a fingerprint background check. i think the consumers when they hear the facts are going to figure it out. it’s not a matter of overregulation, it’s a matter of safety. just always think safety, how do we ensure the safest product possible. if her logic is correct, then why do we have the faa overlooking airlines? if i want to have an airplane fall apart, is it up to you to get on it to put your kids on there? there’s got to be some kind of oversight. we’ve got to use a common sense approach when it comes to safety. >> these fingerprint background checks, they cost 15 to $30. uber is a multibillion dollar corporation. you’re not asking them to do something very onerous. this is a pretty reasonable requirement for a multibillion dollar corporation. >> let’s talk about that. so the argument is it’s a different business model. first of all, to simply say that they’re not safe is just scare tactics. they are safe. in the state of texas to operate a car you have to have a driver’s license. so to say that they’re unregulated is just a false statement. in the state of texas to drive a car you have to have your car inspected. and so you also have to carry insurance so to say that they are not carrying insurance and not being inspected or they’re not being regulated, it’s a false statement because in actuality you have to have all of those things to drive a car in the state of texas. on top of that it’s not necessarily about the background checks. they do background checks and they’re willing to upload those background checks to our systems and relinquish that information. the issue is when you come to fingerprinting, fingerprinting costs money and fingerprinting doesn’t necessarily make things necessarily safer. and fingerprinting takes time. and so in an industry that’s growing so rapidly and has such high market turnover it just isn’t cost efficient for them and their drivers to factor that into their business model and that’s their case and it makes sense to me. >> you heard uber already does background checks, they’re willing to upload that information with municipalities. uber riders can see the name and license plates of their drivers. some people would say that the safety argument by taxi cab companies is a veiled attempt to get rid of their competition in cities. >> i’ve heard that argument. i will tell you it is not any type of attempt to get rid of anybody. i will make it clear, i welcome uber to our community. i welcome the people that like uber. i have nothing against the uber drivers. in fact, the uber drivers i think have been holding the biggest burden on this. everybody is trying to make a living. that’s what it’s about, trying to make a living. now, again in order to do so we should all comply with certain rules. you mentioned earlier the value of this company. i’m a small businessman. i’ve been in business for 50 years. for a reason, i don’t think it’s just strict luck. the rules say my drivers have got to have fingerprint background checks. the reason that we do it is obviously a safety issue. if i comply as a small businessman, why in the world would a company that’s worth $65 billion not be able to afford 15 measly dollars to do a fingerprint check if it enhances safety? >> they say they’re already doing it, that it would be a repetive step — [ overlapping speakers ] >> the proof is in the details. they are not doing it. they’re doing their own third background check, which is using a third accredited company. it’s not with a law enforcement agency. and the way i make that analogy, why would you as a government allow a business to regulate themselves and this is not me, this is former austin school board president gina hinojosa, she says i don’t care how cool or innovative they are, you can’t let businesses regulate themselves and i’m telling you i’ve been in this business many, many years. it’s not a smart way to proceed. we want to know who’s driving the vehicles, the company is worth billions of dollars, they can afford $30 for a fingerprint background check. >> we have to take a commercial break. when we come back, we’re going to go to your phone calls and e-mails. remember you’re watching “abc- xtra.” you can call us at (916)496-1775, e-mail us at abc7xtra@kvia.com we’ll be right back. >>> welcome back. let’s go straight to twitter. calvin tweeting uber provides jobs, it should not be taken away because it provides opportunity for financial independence. jorge tweeting stop fingerprinting taxi drivers. think of drunk driving reductions since uber came to town. el paso liberty tweeting rather than demanding the city regulate uber, why not call to deregulate taxi tab driving period? help consumers, not business. >> and that’s exactly the direction we’re trying to take. so there’s no misunderstanding. the city of austin has told you their duis are down 25% since uber came to town and when — lots of them are young individuals, military, that are looking for a way to provide supplemental income and it’s jobs and so i think the best thing for us to do is to work with the vehicle for hire industry, figure out a way to reduce some of these onerous regulations, figure out a way some of these processes are making it not be able to be financially competive and help them deregulate but also not stifle this new marketplace that people put a great value on. >> you know, in the city ordinance that the council is going to discuss from what i understand, not vote on but just discuss on tuesday, one of the proposals was to cut the current cost for permitting for a taxi cab company that has 60 vehicles from $26,000 to $15,000. i mean, that’s a 41% decrease. also to ensure that permits are issued every three years as opposed to every two years. so there is an effort by the city of el paso to make things easier. >> there’s actually a few more things. we’re actually going to make it not a requirement to come to city council for authorization. we’re making the online application completely accessible, so we’re really trying to work with the industry to make it more competive for them. >> i will tell you that the proof is in the details. what they did not tell you and what has thought been brought up here is they’re lowering the fees to get the permits but they’re also adding a new surcharge on there. they’re going to charge $1 per trip. that’s new. and so you give somebody something on one side and take it away from the other pocket, i really am going to reserve judgment as to whether the city is really trying to help the industry by that particular proposal. >> i know in the case of the taxi cab industry they still want special privilege permits. they still want the ability to be exclusively at the airport. they still want the exclusivity and to be able to cruise and have taxi zones. these are things that uber or transportation network companies aren’t going to do. if you want special privileges you’re going to have to pay because they’re special privileges, anything that we do is done that way. but to compare them the same way to permit uber, uber is not asking for those things. you can’t hail an uber. there’s not an uber zone. and so i just don’t feel like the argument is the same. >> again if i may interject. that thinking is flawed on so many levels. first of all, it is a privilege to work at the airport. if you call it that. we have got to pay a special permit to be there. now, it’s a slap in the face to every cab driver that works at the airport, many long hours, when uber is there right now, the head of the airport terry sharp has publicly stated that they are working out of the airport. they’re not supposed to. city council made it clear at our meeting august 25th of last year they’re not supposed to be there. well, guess what? they are. i really would like for the city of el paso to start enforcing the current ordinances that we have so it is fair for everybody. make them pay just the way the cab drivers are. >> one of our photographers did a test run on your new app to see how much it would cost to get from the airport to his home in northeast el paso using a taxi versus uber and it was double the cost using a taxi. it was like $34 versus about $17 using uber. so as much as governments will regulate the truth is the consumers are going to make a choice based on what’s more convenient for them. so it’s cheaper for somebody almost half the cost to use uber, it’s not going to matter if there’s a taxi right in front, they’re going to call an uber. >> i’m very glad you brought that point up. in the case of uber which has been working here in this city illegally for the last two years, have not paid 1 penny in a permit, have not kicked in any money into our city coffers in terms of taxes, how can we be on the same playing field? every one of my cab drivers files taxes, has got to pay taxes on their individual vehicles. we’ve got to pay permits. the last time i checked, uber has not pulled one permit from the city. but they have not pulled a permit, they have not paid 1 penny in taxes. this is two years. this is a $65 billion company. how much more pillaging do we have to go through before we make an even playing field? >> you say that uber is operating legally here. >> it’s a false statement to say they’re operating illegally. to operate a car in the state of texas you have to have a driver’s license, you have to have insurance — >> but the city ordinance has very specific constraints for vehicle for hire companies. >> they don’t claim to be a vehicle for hire, they claim to be a transportation network company and to say they’re not paying taxes into the system is another false statement. they’re employing tons of youth, they’re employing tons of seniors, those individuals are taking that money and putting it directly back into our economy. it’s so dangerous for government to overregulate businesses to the point where they can’t flourish and those businesses can’t grow. if you want special privilege permits to be able to operate in exclusive locations you’ve got to pay for it. if you don’t and you find a different way to operate and you’re being competive, then that’s your prerogative. that’s america. >> okay. let’s go to twitter. john saying uber should have the same requisites, shouldn’t give them special permission, unless it’s the same across the board. adrian saying why does the city of el paso prevent people from hailing cabs from a sidewalk? it seems like we could save a lot of lives. does the city prevent people from hailing cabs? >> there are certain zones that are dedicate where had taxi cabs and vehicles for hire can quote/unquote cruise for service. and so i think at the end of the day there is a lot of value in what the vehicle for hire industry is bringing to the table. this ordinance needs to be revisited. it needs to be revised and we do need to deregulate. that’s only something that would be good for the consumer. but let’s not stifle a new marketplace that’s beginning to flourish. >> i’ve said it over and over at several different meetings, if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it’s a duck. i don’t care what any representative says, what any official says, if you use a vehicle and that vehicle comes and picks you up, and you pay for it, i don’t care whether it’s a credit card or bit coin, we’re all adults here, we know they are providing a transportation service for hire. we have an ordinance for that. we’ve got to comply with it. >> they said the same thing about wireless versus landlines and thank god government officials didn’t overregulate that. >> calvin tweeting it’s a new way for people to supplement their income and build for their futures, it provides another option for consumers. calvin also saying we don’t know who’s driving regular taxis, either. adrian saying representative niland is playing favorites with uber. why not allow background checks that are already mandated for taxi drivers? and then adrian also saying why not remove the limits on when and where taxis can pick up customers in el paso? >> i’m not playing favorites by any means. am i an uber user? absolutely. my children are uber users, lots of my constituents, i’ve received over 2,000 people sign a petition asking us to keep uber here and work with uber to find a way for them to operate efficiently and effectively within our marketplace. that’s my job as your representative. but it’s also my job as your representative to work with mr. olivar and find a way to deregulate it and help him be more successful and help his small business grow. there’s a way we can make both sides win and that’s my goal. >> okay. we have to take a commercial break. when >>> welcome back, everyone. let’s go to our phone lines. john is on the phone. what’s your comment or your question? >> yes, my name is john, i’m a truck driver from indianapolis. when i come and visit my daughter i can’t take the truck to pick her up. so when i call a taxi service, they usually take about an hour to pick me up. depending on the location. ever since i discovered uber the longest i’ve waited was 15 minutes. so i find it much easier just to go and use the uber service. when i called them before to check the status they tell me there was no taxis available at the time. i have never had that problem with uber. >> thank you very much john we appreciate it. i’ve heard that before. you know, someone i know personally told me that they were leaving a party once, they had drunk, they did not want to drive home. and they waited an hour and a half for a taxi. it’s a common tale. >> it’s a valid point. i take it very seriously. we have instituted our new app called onto the ride, we’re hoping to increase the service intervals so that the people can see the vehicles showing up to pick them up and know how far they are. that’s a service issue. what i have been having issues with this new ordinance are the safety aspects. and that’s what this discussion is really about. at the end of the day if you don’t like a service at a restaurant, you don’t go there. i get that. >> but uber — [ overlapping speakers ] >> it’s a power of choice. if you want to use a taxi cab or vehicle for hire that should be your choice. if you want to use uber, that should be your choice. but i have heard the same tale over and over and over again, and i think if you realize why did this conversation even start? a few months ago, years ago, you had special interests from the taxi cab industry come to us and complain because they had competition. and they didn’t like it because they had never had competion before. it’s not unique to our municipality, it’s happening all over the state and the nation and the world. but no municipality has gotten it right yet. every one that’s tried to overregulate has either ended up in a referendum, in a lawsuit, in a loss of service and why? because this marketplace is growing so fast. that’s why state legislatures are stepping in now, finally and saying listen, this should be a state issue, this is something we needed address in the next legislative session. so why risk to overregulate when it could cost the taxpayers more money and damaging an industry? >> let me put it to you in a different way. i had a friend of mine, he asked me the same question, joe what’s the big deal with uber? he’s in the construction business, very prominent guy, it’s the equivalent of having somebody come to el paso saying i would like to put up a 20 story building, i’m going to employ 10,000 people. everybody’s happy, it’s economic growth. but then when you read the fine print but i don’t want to comply with the rules you have in place, i don’t want to do the proper thing. it’s the same thing here. we provide a service. we have certain rules in place and again, i’m a small business guy, i don’t like those rules but those are the rules that are in place for safety reasons. if i could comply with them, a huge corporation could afford to pay $15 for a background check. >> that’s the easy argument and those are the scare tactics that people use. they do do background checks. they do require that their drivers have driver’s licenses and insurance and have their cars inspected so to make those statements, they’re just false and the city of austin has even said to sit there under the false pretense and say by getting them fingerprinted we’re going to make it safer for you is just a false pretense. >> i want to make sure we go to the phone. rosa on the east side — we are going to nick. what’s your comment or your question? >> i use the metro bus but when the bus quits running i use the taxi. but the taxis don’t pick me up because of where i’m going and it’s not a big fare so they won’t pick me up but uber does. >> okay nick thank you very much. nick saying he doesn’t travel very far so taxis won’t pick him up but uber does. another thing we’ve heard before since this discussion started that somebody will call a taxi and they’ll say where are you going and it’s a short ride they won’t send someone. >> again, that’s a service industry issue. it’s the same thing you have choices when you go to restaurants. if you don’t like that particular restaurant, you don’t use it. what that doesn’t address are the safety issues. why we have the safety issues? she brought up the fact that uber does background checks. if you use a third party, not the police department, how are you getting the same result? and that’s been proven over and over again. they’ve had people driving uber vehicles that are felons in california. they get through that type of background check. we want to keep the highest standard possible because it’s in the interest of the consumer. it’s a safety issue, plain and simple. >> john tweeting a fingerprint check would have possibly prevented the six people that were murdered by the uber driver in michigan. >> there was an article in dallas that said two people that had an accident in dallas — >> we’ll come back to that. matthew tweeting uber is an internet company, drivers are contractors, this is why they don’t pay taxes. i think he met permits. reuben saying mr. olivar talked about safety, as an uber driver, i don’t have to deal with money or credit cards. and matthew saying from a googler welcome to the digital world el paso taxis. matthew saying late to the game and jealous. taxis have long had the capabilities uber has. consumers shouldn’t suffer because taxis are late to the game. does uber have the same insurance coverage as taxi cabs? does uber pay taxes as taxi cabs? >> i will tell you in austin when the people educated themselves because in austin uber threatened to pull out so the government said we don’t want to get in this mess so they put it out as a vote. austin is arguably the most liberally city in texas. they love uber. the consumers do. when the people realized that uber drivers are not doing the same type of background checks as cab drivers when there was questions about the insurance, the people of austin voted overwhelmingly to say no, we want to know who’s driving these vehicles. and that passed by the people, that has not been brought up. in fact, the city of el paso had postponed this ordinance because they thought it was a shoo-in, in austin. when that didn’t happen, you hear all those spin tactics that austin doesn’t matter. >> i went to austin to talk to their council members to find out if that’s the truth and actually, it’s a false statement. what happened was regulators came in and wanted to regulate. they came in with something that was not appropriate, didn’t work for the company and the company said if you’re going to do this we’re going to have to pull out and so the city of austin put that referendum, the regulations forward. well, then there was 65,000 people that signed a petition that said we want to keep uber in austin. and forced the city council via referendum to put it on the ballot but that language can’t be tweaked and so the city attorney and the uber individuals, although they tried to tweet the referendum language to make sure that people understood what they were voting for, they couldn’t tweak it and so everywhere didn’t even know when i visited two weeks ago if you voted for or against, you were getting it to stay or not. the same thing happened with us just a few years ago with a referendum and so the problem there is now they’re locked into a law for two years. >> let’s — >> so you’re saying people in austin did not know what they were voting on? >> i was there and i actually asked people if you want uber to stay which way do you vote and many people said i don’t know. and they actually explained it at a forum that i attended that week learning about this particular issue. >> i want to make sure we get to the callers what have been waiting. rosa, what’s your comment or your question? >> i think that they should be fingerprinted because i used to work for sun metro and i know taxi cab drivers have to be fingerprinted. and i want to know whenever i’m getting in a car if this person is a criminal or not. i need for them to be fingerprinted. i am now a teacher and there’s other people, there’s people that come into the teaching career and some of them come in to molest children. what about these people? we don’t know who they are. they need to be fingerprinted. we need to be safe in our own city. >> that’s the beauty about capitalism. you get the choice. if you want to pay a premium for a taxi cab or a vehicle for hire, that’s your choice and if you know that they have to adhere to different standards or different regulations but you’re willing to put a value on that and a price on that that’s your choice. but as a consumer, it’s wrong for government to step in and eliminate your choices and your freedom. >> well, i disagree with that. i think government’s first and foremost responsibility is to ensure a certain amount of safety because when somebody gets in a vehicle, they’re assuming that they’re safe. >> but you want me to deregulate all your rules. >> under this current proposal, you have no idea who’s driving this vehicle. use some common sense, that lady gets it, the people in austin get it. i think your viewers are smart enough to know it’s not a matter of putting somebody out of business. you’re not going to put a $65 billion company out of business. it’s a matter of protection. >> matthew saying fingerprinting is not going to prevent someone from committing a crime. listen up folks tweeting at us background checks are not the end all be all. they cannot predict when someone will have a bad day and do something terrible. let’s go to olivia from sunset heights. what’s your comment or your question? >> i use uber and love it because i get information that’s very important. i’m blind, and so i know who’s driving, the telephone number, when they’re going to arrive, they even call me when they get here and the prices are reasonable and they come very promptly. and i’ve never waited any more than seven minutes. >> i trust people. i trust people. and i think if they want to have this as a consumer’s choice, they should be allowed to have that and i don’t want to stifle a marketplace that’s growing and creating the potential to make our roadways safer. i will work with the taxi cab industry to try to make it a little bit more competive for them but at the same time, it would be a bad choice on behalf of the city council for us to overregulate an industry that’s serving so many by way of additional source of income, a safe ride home and helping families. >> there’s nothing left in the new proposal. the ordinance that’s being proposed has no enforcement to it, none. they have actually put in the ordinance the ability for uber to price surge, charge whatever they want. there’s got to be some type of consumer protection. >> you can price surge, too. >> no, we cannot. >> you could if you had the technology. >> okay. well, we’re going to leave it at that. we have run out of time. thank you so much. >> you bet. >> thank you for having us. >> thanks for joing us on “abc-7 xtra. we went a little bit over time, obviously, because we thought this was important. and we wanted to accommodate your phone calls. thank