I use this blog to write about what I’m passionate about. Mostly, it’s taken up by my photography, and I hope you enjoy seeing snippets of my personal life here as well. I feel I must post the following information because I feel extremely passionate about this topic, especially about the fact that we as Americans should have the right to start a business and succeed based on our merits.  We are fighting hard against what should be simple and fair. This has been going on for 2 years now, but we’re not giving up. We need help from you, the media, and anyone else who wants to take a stand against corruption.

Here is a copy of an email I sent to a news reporter. Check out the links from the Free Times and WYFF. It explains what’s going on in more detail.

Hi Beverly,

We spoke yesterday at City Hall after the Council Meeting regarding the struggles my husband has gone through just to open a cab company in the city of Greenville. This fight has been going on for 2 years now, and is still being dragged out. This story is bigger than it seems, which is why we think it’s drawing media interest. All we want is a fair chance to succeed based on the merits of our business – but Yellow Cab is terrified of bringing in competition. If you investigate further, you will see a lot of cronyism, handshakes, and practices that go against the fundamentals of the American free enterprise system. Every American should be given the right to succeed – that’s what makes this country so great. There is no reason for the City of Greenville to be fighting so hard against this.

They state safety – yet they have NEVER implemented an inspection program for the cabs currently on the road.

They state they’re afraid of too many cabs on the streets – but yesterday they admitted they have NEVER denied Yellow Cab when they wanted to add additional cabs.  Yellow Cab has 57 cabs compared to 2 with the other companies. It’s blatant monopolist control of the market and the city.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m placing some links in this email. One is to a brief story that WYFF covered last year on this story: Business Owner Claims Greenville Shut Him Out.  We contacted them again this year, but haven’t heard back from them.  I’ve also linked an article from the Free Times here in Columbia: http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992912064227409&ShowArticle_ID=11012501111629441

– They are doing an in-depth investigation into the business practices here in Columbia by Checker Yellow, which is owned by the same person (Dallas Ball) as Yellow Cab in Greenville.

You will find that competition is being suffocated in blatant ways.  Yellow Cab of Greenville has 57 cabs, and charges their drivers $80 per day in to least a cab from them – that’s a lot of money that they don’t want to lose. They don’t want another cab company to come into town, offering a lower lease rate. All the drivers are self-employed contractors, with no rights to any benefits, and also have to pay their own gas. This is pretty standard in the taxi industry in the South, but what’s not standard is that Yellow Cab forces all the cab drivers to sign a non-competition agreement that prevents them from working with another cab company if they work for Yellow Cab. The cab drivers have to sign this agreement, but are not provided with their own copy of it after signing it. If the drivers are self-employed contractors (something that is printed on the side of every cab), then how can Yellow Cab dictate what cab company they lease a car from in the future? This is to prevent the drivers from also attempting to start their own company. This is the documentation we provided you yesterday.

Also, out of 57 cabs, Yellow Cab provides NO handicapped vehicles or wheelchair vans. American VIP Cab plans to bring a handicap van in from day 1 to serve the needs of handicapped citizens of Greenville. The Business License division in their presentation yesterday said that they wouldn’t require Yellow Cab to have a handicapped vehicle because it was too expensive – I find this offensive, especially since we have so many soldiers coming home with missing limbs these days. It’s insulting. A company that large should make it a priority to service their handicapped customers.

Yesterday’s front page news reported on this story as well in the Greenville News.

 

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South Carolina Wedding Photographer, Portrait Photographer and Boudoir Photographer
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