Darwin Rodriguez, one of our employees, getting arrested last July
Every time I go out to work, I feel like I’m being watched. I have to keep one eye on the cops at all times, because I never know when one will strike. You’d think I’m peddling drugs, or my body, or at least knock-off purses, from the amount of vigilance that my job requires. But I’m not doing anything that comes across as illegal or harmful in any way. All I’m doing is… selling rides in Times Square.
I ride the Partybike, a circular tricycle built for seven, offering rides to random groups of people on nights and weekends. I make decent money this way, and have loads of fun. We give the streets a sort of carnival atmosphere, with groups of screaming girls careening down Broadway every so often. We are the only attraction that requires challenging physical activity in the entire Times Square area. People from toddlers to senior citizens, skinny to obese, from the Bronx to New Orleans to Mozambique, have ridden this bike… and thoroughly enjoyed it. We are fulfilling a unique niche in the city landscape, promoting bicycling in about the most eye-catching way possible.
However, we have never been sanctioned by the Powers That Be, as we don’t fit into their prescribed categories. We are not a motor vehicle, so we do not require a license or license plates. We are self-propelled and technically a tricycle, but are almost the size of a car, so cannot fit into bike lanes (and are nothing like as nimble or fast as a normal bike). Considering this aberrance of sorts, the city has not been friendly to us.
When I went for my initial job interview last year, the owner warned me that the police tend to ticket us fairly often. He assured me that it was nothing, since the tickets always get dismissed in court. At the time, considering my rebellious nature, this made it seem all the more appealing – “Aww right! Stick it to the Man!!” – but a month after that interview, most of the employees quietly disappeared when our bikes did.
You see, we have always been a magnet for traffic tickets. Most of them are because we have to stop on the side of the street, both to talk to customers and rest our exhausted legs. Lately, though, they’ve been ticketing us for other things, like having too many people on the bike (we used to stick people in the middle all the time, which is probably the safest place on the bike) or even having riders without helmets (though bicycle law says it’s the responsibility of the parents, not us). But the ticketing alone is just an ongoing nuisance. We can deal with it. It’s their other weapons that really sting.
April of last year was the first time they seized our bikes. Five of them. I believe they are still in the impound lot by the Navy Yard right now. Our company bought ten new bikes in the summer, but by November and December, the police had seized most of them. The charge? “Vending without a license.”
Now, there is no license that specifically applies to selling rides on a bike. A handful of pedicabs have been taken for this same reason. There is something called a general vendor’s license, which covers the regular street vendors with tables and all, but the city only issues a few hundred of them each year – which makes our chances of getting one (much less, one for each bike) next to impossible. In essence, we are being punished for violating a law that we are not able to follow. (Norman Siegel actually fought this law to get those pedicabs back -- and lost.) This is an easy way of trying to put us out of business.
But it gets even worse. Most of the time that they take our bikes, is when they arrest the driver. Yes, we actually get arrested on the job. Typically, something one of us does irritates a cop, so he pulls over the driver, checks for ID, tells the riders to leave, and proceeds with the ticketing process. After a bit of conferring with the other cops, he comes back and says the driver has an open warrant, and thus is under arrest. Sometimes this is from previous (bogus) tickets, but often the driver actually has no warrant at all! It’s gotten to the point where most of our current drivers (including myself) have been arrested at least once on the job, often to find that all of their charges are dropped at arraignment. Recently one of our drivers was even arrested in our own garage! While I was being transferred from the precinct to Central Booking, one of the officers told me that “until you’re outlawed, this is gonna keep happening.”
And there is a powerful force trying to outlaw us. The most recent pedicab regulation bill that’s being circulated around City Council calls for a ban on all Partybikes or anything like them. The commissioner of the DOT has spoken at length at these regulation hearings about how much of a hazard our bikes are to safety and traffic flow. And the pedicab drivers’ and owners’ associations, rather than including us in their recommendations for pedicab regulations (which would help legitimize all for-hire bicycle rides), have had closed meetings with councilmembers and ignored our concerns altogether. The next hearing is in September. I shudder to think what the bill will look like then.
Yet another complicating factor is that since November, we’ve had a competing company, Superbike, which has exactly the same bikes (painted different colors), but has established itself as our nemesis from day one. The owner, James Muessig, has even spoken to the council members to say that our company is dangerous and should be banned – not the bike itself. He has told all his drivers this, too – that our company, not anybody in the government, is the cause for all the problems. I can’t overestimate how counterproductive this has been to our whole situation.
James had always maintained that his company has never had a bike taken. But last month, that exactly happened. Furthermore, his sworn enemy – our owner and founder, Don Domite – died suddenly in June. With little more to lose, even James is now considering working with us. It’s the only thing left to do.
The amount of crap we have had to put up with only shows our dedication to survival. When our drivers are willing to risk not only the unreliable income of a street vendor (e.g. it’s very weather-dependent), but being jailed, you know we really love our job. We have also accumulated a collection of lawyers to fight for our rights in the city, but lawyers are not a cure-all… it takes a lot more strategizing, as well as gaining of public support, to build a strong base of resistance. They can take our bikes, they can take our people… but we won’t let this die.
(If you’d like to help, leave some feedback at www.partybike.com.)
I ride the Partybike, a circular tricycle built for seven, offering rides to random groups of people on nights and weekends. I make decent money this way, and have loads of fun. We give the streets a sort of carnival atmosphere, with groups of screaming girls careening down Broadway every so often. We are the only attraction that requires challenging physical activity in the entire Times Square area. People from toddlers to senior citizens, skinny to obese, from the Bronx to New Orleans to Mozambique, have ridden this bike… and thoroughly enjoyed it. We are fulfilling a unique niche in the city landscape, promoting bicycling in about the most eye-catching way possible.
However, we have never been sanctioned by the Powers That Be, as we don’t fit into their prescribed categories. We are not a motor vehicle, so we do not require a license or license plates. We are self-propelled and technically a tricycle, but are almost the size of a car, so cannot fit into bike lanes (and are nothing like as nimble or fast as a normal bike). Considering this aberrance of sorts, the city has not been friendly to us.
When I went for my initial job interview last year, the owner warned me that the police tend to ticket us fairly often. He assured me that it was nothing, since the tickets always get dismissed in court. At the time, considering my rebellious nature, this made it seem all the more appealing – “Aww right! Stick it to the Man!!” – but a month after that interview, most of the employees quietly disappeared when our bikes did.
You see, we have always been a magnet for traffic tickets. Most of them are because we have to stop on the side of the street, both to talk to customers and rest our exhausted legs. Lately, though, they’ve been ticketing us for other things, like having too many people on the bike (we used to stick people in the middle all the time, which is probably the safest place on the bike) or even having riders without helmets (though bicycle law says it’s the responsibility of the parents, not us). But the ticketing alone is just an ongoing nuisance. We can deal with it. It’s their other weapons that really sting.
April of last year was the first time they seized our bikes. Five of them. I believe they are still in the impound lot by the Navy Yard right now. Our company bought ten new bikes in the summer, but by November and December, the police had seized most of them. The charge? “Vending without a license.”
Now, there is no license that specifically applies to selling rides on a bike. A handful of pedicabs have been taken for this same reason. There is something called a general vendor’s license, which covers the regular street vendors with tables and all, but the city only issues a few hundred of them each year – which makes our chances of getting one (much less, one for each bike) next to impossible. In essence, we are being punished for violating a law that we are not able to follow. (Norman Siegel actually fought this law to get those pedicabs back -- and lost.) This is an easy way of trying to put us out of business.
But it gets even worse. Most of the time that they take our bikes, is when they arrest the driver. Yes, we actually get arrested on the job. Typically, something one of us does irritates a cop, so he pulls over the driver, checks for ID, tells the riders to leave, and proceeds with the ticketing process. After a bit of conferring with the other cops, he comes back and says the driver has an open warrant, and thus is under arrest. Sometimes this is from previous (bogus) tickets, but often the driver actually has no warrant at all! It’s gotten to the point where most of our current drivers (including myself) have been arrested at least once on the job, often to find that all of their charges are dropped at arraignment. Recently one of our drivers was even arrested in our own garage! While I was being transferred from the precinct to Central Booking, one of the officers told me that “until you’re outlawed, this is gonna keep happening.”
And there is a powerful force trying to outlaw us. The most recent pedicab regulation bill that’s being circulated around City Council calls for a ban on all Partybikes or anything like them. The commissioner of the DOT has spoken at length at these regulation hearings about how much of a hazard our bikes are to safety and traffic flow. And the pedicab drivers’ and owners’ associations, rather than including us in their recommendations for pedicab regulations (which would help legitimize all for-hire bicycle rides), have had closed meetings with councilmembers and ignored our concerns altogether. The next hearing is in September. I shudder to think what the bill will look like then.
Yet another complicating factor is that since November, we’ve had a competing company, Superbike, which has exactly the same bikes (painted different colors), but has established itself as our nemesis from day one. The owner, James Muessig, has even spoken to the council members to say that our company is dangerous and should be banned – not the bike itself. He has told all his drivers this, too – that our company, not anybody in the government, is the cause for all the problems. I can’t overestimate how counterproductive this has been to our whole situation.
James had always maintained that his company has never had a bike taken. But last month, that exactly happened. Furthermore, his sworn enemy – our owner and founder, Don Domite – died suddenly in June. With little more to lose, even James is now considering working with us. It’s the only thing left to do.
The amount of crap we have had to put up with only shows our dedication to survival. When our drivers are willing to risk not only the unreliable income of a street vendor (e.g. it’s very weather-dependent), but being jailed, you know we really love our job. We have also accumulated a collection of lawyers to fight for our rights in the city, but lawyers are not a cure-all… it takes a lot more strategizing, as well as gaining of public support, to build a strong base of resistance. They can take our bikes, they can take our people… but we won’t let this die.
(If you’d like to help, leave some feedback at www.partybike.com.)
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