By KEILE CAMPBELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

TAXI union president Tyrone Butler has accused the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD) and Atlantis Resort of enabling livery drivers to illegally solicit fares, warning they will be “addressed in short order”.

“They don’t have a right to be in our space, soliciting their work – they don’t have no legal ground,” Mr Butler said. “We have Atlantis resort, these are two willing participants in this scheme to allow livery drivers to operate contrary to the law, and they are going to be addressed in short order.”

He pointed to the Road Traffic Act, which states: “A livery car shall not be hired except by oral or written communication to the license holder at his usual place of business.”

Mr Butler also dismissed claims from Bahamas Livery Drivers Union president Tori Austin, who told Beyond the Headlines that transport standards “has dropped a lot.” Mr Butler called those remarks “very irresponsible” and said livery drivers are guilty of the same practices they criticise. “If he was honest, he would admit that livery drivers also sleep in their cars at the airport,” he said.

He also criticised host Shenique Miller. “For the host to even allow him to say that and didn’t check it,” he said, “she’s a very irresponsible talk show host, which is why I will never appear on that show.”

Speaking at the LPIA taxi lot on Friday, Mr Butler invited The Tribune to inspect the stand, noting the late-model vans and SUVs, many freshly washed, and drivers in pressed shirts. “As you can see, the caliber of vehicles that we have on this taxi stand – these are not cheap, broke-up taxis. The men and women that work from here are serious about what they do,” he said.

On the talk show, Mr Austin and Ms Miller suggested some taxi drivers sleep in their cars to get ahead of the line. Mr Butler said while drivers do arrive overnight, “that’s not to say they don’t freshen up – we have a recreation room where they can freshen up.”

Mr Austin, meanwhile, said livery drivers “are not at war with the taxis” and want a regulated system to allow both sides to coexist, adding his union opposes drivers waiting at hotel and airport doors.

The Code of Conduct signed last year by Transport Minister JoBeth Coleby-Davis and former BTCU president Wesley Ferguson requires public-service drivers to maintain professional standards, with Road Traffic officers and weekly tribunals enforcing penalties ranging from reprimands to suspensions.

Former Atlantis executive Ed Fields, who has long tried to mediate between the two groups, said successive governments fuelled the conflict by handing out taxi plates as political favours and allowing livery cars to stage alongside taxis at hotels and the airport.