With Crown Cab Ltd. on the verge of being sold, the city of North Battleford plans to maintain its current practices with respect to taxi cab licenses in the city.
City council accepted administration's recommendation that the current practices on approving taxi cab licenses will continue and that the city will not sign any agreements to offer exclusivity or a right of first refusal on additional taxicab licenses. They passed a resolution to that affect at Monday's meeting unanimously.
The discussion on the issue comes as Crown Cab Ltd. is in the process of being purchased by the Mian Waddah Sahib Corporation (MWS Corp.).
Crown Cab Ltd. currently holds or manages 16 taxi cab licenses issued by the city and administration indicates there should be no problem transferring those licenses to MWS Corp. upon purchase. What was really at issue was exclusivity, particularly with respect to the awarding of additional future taxi licenses.
In a memo from city manager Jim Toye to council dated August 18, 2011, MWS Corp. "is now requesting an exclusivity agreement or right of first refusal on any additional taxi/limo licenses issued by the City."
Toye told council that MWS Corp. had been under the impression that Crown Cab Ltd. had some sort of exclusivity agreement with the city. "That is not so," Toye told council.
Toye's memo indicated the city had not increased the number of licenses since the 1980s.
"Certainly with the economic boom in our city there may be an opportunity to increase taxi licenses as our population increases," Toye's memo stated. "Administration feels that any additional taxi license should be open to the free market."
Administration made the recommendation to continue "as is", which council accepted unanimously.
The possibility remains open, however, that city council may review the current taxi licensing practises in the future. Coun. Don Buglas suggested it "wouldn't hurt to work with the business people involved with this" and review the process to see if it was still current.
