{"id":424,"date":"2017-01-26T02:22:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T07:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=424"},"modified":"2017-01-26T02:22:31","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T07:22:31","slug":"taxi-service-owner-requests-stricter-registration-law-in-toms-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2017\/01\/taxi-service-owner-requests-stricter-registration-law-in-toms-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxi Service Owner Requests Stricter Registration Law in Toms River"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A taxi sign. (Credit: Leonid Mamchenkov\/ Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

The owner a taxicab company in Toms River told township council members this week that he\u2019d fed up with unlicensed cabs in town and favors a more stringent penalty for companies that hire unregistered drivers.<\/p>\n

Steve Delmar, owner of Toms River Taxi, said he must pay about $160 per driver in registration fees \u2013 including a background check, fingerprinting and an application fee \u2013 for each driver who gets behind the wheel of one of his cabs. Some other companies don\u2019t follow the law, he said, despite drivers pleading guilty to such offenses in municipal court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are constantly taxicab drivers who are not properly licensed,\u201d said Delmar. \u201cLast summer, I saw several unlicensed taxi drivers at the bus station, day after day after day. One was convicted in municipal court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delmar said the township\u2019s current ordinance only punishes the drivers of unlicensed taxicabs. He has proposed revising the ordinance to punish the owners of the companies\u00a0for which they are driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe owner of the taxi companies should be equally, if not more, responsible to make sure that taxicabs are licensed,\u201d said Delmar. \u201cAn owner can hire anyone they choose to drive a taxi, and if said employee is found to be operating a taxicab without a valid permit, only that employee will face the consequences. There are several companies that operate like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the ordinance were to be changed, \u201cit wouldn\u2019t be worth it,\u201d he said, for owners to risk getting caught.<\/p>\n

Delmar suggested a suspension or revocation of a company\u2019s license to operate after a single offense, but Councilman George Wittmann \u2013 who supports a tighter law \u2013 said a \u201cthree strikes and you\u2019re out\u201d law is what he favors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a good idea,\u201d said Wittmann.<\/p>\n

Council members said they would consider the request.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The owner a taxicab company in Toms River told township council members this week that he\u2019d fed up with unlicensed cabs in town and favors a more stringent penalty for companies that hire unregistered drivers. Steve Delmar, owner of Toms River Taxi, said he must pay about $160 per driver in registration fees \u2013 including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[165,166,11],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","tag-taxi","tag-taxi-ordinance","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/406389867_29ee0a620e_b.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}