Town council has passed its first ever Taxi Bylaw that will allow up to eight cabs to serve the community.
And already, Associated Cab Red Deer, which has served the Central Alberta city since 1978, is preparing the necessary paperwork to start a new company in Innisfail, one that will serve the town with three regular cabs and one handi-van.
“What they (Innisfail) is lacking is a service and there is a hole there,” said Daryl Frenette, 54, owner of the Red Deer company since 2003. “I was told that there was no business for it but I hear stories from the people that have to answer the calls that there is business for it but there is no service. We are just going to fill the gap.”
Frenette said the new local company will be called Associated Cab Innisfail, and after the necessary paperwork is filed to the town, the new company should be ready to service Innisfail within a month. He said there are no immediate plans to have a physical office in Innisfail, noting his Red Deer company set up a computerized dispatch system two years ago, which took away the necessity of having an office presence in a community outside the Central Alberta city.
“I could set up a taxi company in Vancouver from here, theoretically,” said Frenette. “We can set up a dispatch system through the computer system and we don't have to have a physical location there.”
Helen Dietz, the town's chief administrative officer, said the new bylaw – which the town has been looking at for almost two years - was created because there was increased interest from out of town to establish professional taxi companies in Innisfail. She said the bylaw was designed similar to what other municipalities have in place.
“In order to do that I wanted to put the rules in place first so they knew there was going to be guidelines around bringing a taxi company to town,” said Dietz, who presented a report to council at its regular meeting on July 14. “And they were more than happy to be interested in seeing a bylaw.
“There is also individual drivers stopping in and asking for a licence,” added Dietz, who is also the town's new chief taxi inspector. “So we wanted to put in some rules around that and a limit to how many cabs could run in town.”
The bylaw's new rules stipulate there are to be a maximum of eight taxi licence plates issued and that any company (brokerage) will operate clean and mechanically-maintained metered cabs with a communication system 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. As well, the town will issue identification plates for each vehicle that is licensed as a taxi.
The annual cost for application fees for a brokerage licence is $150, with a $45 administration fee. Application fees for independent drivers are also $150. The annual cost for applying for a local taxi licence is $45. There is also a one-time $40 cost to apply for a taxi licence plate.
Meanwhile, the new Taxi Bylaw has angered Ray Plato, who operates Innisfail Taxi Ltd. with his wife Hazel. The couple have been providing scaled down cab service for the town with two vehicles for the past 14 years.
Plato, who is able to operate his business under the recently amended Business Licensing Bylaw until the end of the year, said he's adamant he will “most definitely not” apply for a taxi licence under the new bylaw in 2015.
“Nobody is going to tell me how to run my business when it's my money invested. When (Business Licensing Bylaw) runs out we will be out of here,” said Plato, adding the meter system used by city taxi companies is “useless' for the citizens of the town. “You got over a 100 cabs in Red Deer. They have to control the prices. We've had a flat rate ever since we had this and everybody wanted it and that is what we went for.”
