News Release
Taxi Commission Warns License Holders
(Friday, March 9/2001)-- The Chair of the Halifax Regional Taxi Commission reminded license holders today to "use it, or lose it."
Councillor Stephen Adams said the Taxi Commission has been implementing a number of initiatives recently to get more cabs back on the road. There has been a large number of citizen complaints in recent months about a lack of taxi service, ranging from dispatch issues to the number of vehicles available.
Councillor Adams said that Halifax Regional Council will deal with the limitation issue of taxi licenses at a meeting on March 20th. There have been concerns that many license holders-some holding multi-licenses-- are not putting their license(s) to active use. There are approximately 1,000 valid taxi licenses or so-called "roof lights" in the metro area-about 600 of those were issued in the former City of Halifax.
The Taxi Commission recently issued a directive that all valid taxi license holders must carry vehicle insurance for their license(s) throughout the year. The licenses or roof lights cannot be taken out of service for long periods of time.
In addition, the "grace period" for annual taxi license renewal has been shortened from six months down to one month.
"License holders have to use those licenses. The public is not being served by these people sitting on those licenses, hoping that someday they will have some value, " he said.
Councillor Adams reiterated that taxi licenses are not transferrable-they are, and will remain, the property of the Halifax Regional Municipality.
"We are not going to join the ranks of other communities in North America where you can sell a taxi license for $10,000 or more. That is not going to happen here, so those who now hold taxi licenses should use them-or they will lose them," the Councillor said.
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Councillor Stephen Adams
(902) 497-8818
