TAXI STANDS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19501, 9 June 1925, Page 3

TAXI STANDS.

CITY COUNCIL CHARGES. RESENTED BY OWNERS. A largely-attended meeting of the Otago Taxi Owners’ Association, over which Air Winders presided, was held in Mr 11. Divers’s board room yesterday morning, when the proposals recently considered by the City Council relating to fees to he charged taxi drivers were considered, The City Council’s General Committee’s report, which was adopted, recommended that the license fee under the by-law for ;dl carriages used or kept for hire he £1 per year, and that the existing taxi stands to which telephones were attached be revoked, unless owners were prepared to pay a yearly fee. In order to give effect to this policy it was recommended that tne existing ranks at the Bank of New Zealand, Moray place, Water street, Custom House, in tront of the Old Post Office, and tne cab rank in Water street bo abolished and the telephones removed However, it was suggested that the matter should be held oyer pending the submission to public auction of the privilege to occupy a stand on these respective ranks, except the north side of Water street. It was also suggested that the upset price for each . taxi and horsedrawn cab be £7 for the Bank of New Zealand rank, and £6 in respect to me other The Secretary (Mr H. Divers) explained that the original fee was £l. This was increased to £3, and later' on to £5. A deputation waited on the council last year in conjunction with the Drivers’ Association, pointing out that the £5 fee was exorbitant. However, the matter was ‘‘just shelved.” Just before the foe was due this year taxi drivers discovered that there was to be a further alteration. The speaker pointed out that the Supreme Court in Auckland ruled that fees should be reduced from £7 to £2, and at the end of last year the Invercargill fee was reduced to £l, the judge emphasising that there was no more trouble to license a taxi than a horse-drawn vehicle. As far as Dunedin was concerned, the fee had not been paid this year. The council seemed to realise that it could not increase the fee, but it appeared as if it wanted to get it back on them somehow. The Chairman said that he had seen Cr Sincook about the matter, and it seemed possible that they would get the stands tor £7 per year without letting them go to auction. Mr A. Leeden said that last year they waited on the council, and they might just as well have stayed behind. He considered that the matter should be left in the hands of their _ solicitor. Mr Divers pointed out that in other centres stands were not put up to auction. He suggested that, if every other proposal failed, the matter should bo settled by the Supreme Court' On the motion of Mr Alexander Leeden, seconded by Mr H. Borland, the following, resolutions were carried unanimously:— “(1) That it appears to this meeting that the charges recommended in the report of the General Committee, and adopted by the City Council, are an attempt to charge taxi drivers fees in excess of what has been sanctioned by the recent Supreme Court decision. (2) That the association’s solicitors, Messrs Callan and Gallawny, be asked to advise on the legality of the recommendations. (3) That in view of the remarks attributed in the newspaper report to Cr Clark, the association records that, although communications had passed between the town clerk and the association's solicitor, the lecommendations made by the General Committee were not notified, nor h(is the. association been consulted as to them.”