New Livery Driver License Contemplated For Southampton Town

Southampton Town officials are looking to create separate taxi and livery cab license requirements to regulate the number of app-based companies, like Uber, doing business in Southampton.

The move would require drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft to register with the Southampton Town clerk’s office in order to legally operate within the town’s limits this summer.

By distinguishing between a taxicab license and a livery cab license, the town would be able to monitor drivers in both categories, while also tailoring fee schedules—which have not yet been set—to each distinct group.

“There were concerns with allowing livery drivers to operate as taxicabs, so the only way to address that and still license them is to create an exemption to the license,” Southampton Town Attorney Carl Benincasa said at a work session last Thursday, March 3.

Under the town code, a livery driver would be classified as a driver who can pick up passengers only when it is prearranged either online, through an app, or via telephone. A taxicab driver, on the other hand, will be able to pick up passengers with a prearranged pickup or on the spot—for example, at a train station or outside a club.

Changes to the town’s taxi legislation were first proposed earlier this year by Councilman Stan Glinka, who says that while the competition Uber provides is good, it is also not fair to registered taxi companies that pay significant fees just to do business in the town.

Currently, drivers need several licenses to operate in Southampton Town. First, the drivers must be operating under a registered business, which requires an owner’s license that costs $750. There is also a $150 license fee for each vehicle, plus a $100 fee per operator. For a cab company with only one car and one driver, the business pays $1,000 a year to operate; the more cars and drivers a company has, the higher the annual town fees will be.

To date, Uber drivers have not been paying fees because they have not been required to register to operate in Southampton.

Mr. Glinka said he hopes to have the changes to the legislation in place for this summer. A public hearing on the proposed changes has been scheduled for Tuesday, March 22, at 6 p.m. at Southampton Town Hall.