The driver of the taxi cab that crashed into a parked truck on Pulaski Street last night was driving with a suspended license and was issued a summons for unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, according to Riverhead Town Police records.
Charles Williams, 23, of Riverhead, who was operating the Day and Night Taxi minivan that crashed into a parked pickup truck last night at around 8:15 p.m., injuring a passenger, also did not possess a town taxicab operator permit, as required by the town code.
“We’ve written him up four times for not having a license,” Riverhead Supervisor Sean Walter, who also serves as police commissioner, said this afternoon.
Walter said the last time the town issued Williams a summons was earlier this month, when the code enforcement officer discovered that Williams was wanted on a warrant issued by Suffolk County District Court. He was arrested on the warrant by Riverhead police and transported to Central Islip. Court records show that Williams was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief in August 2012. He was returned to county court on the warrant on July 2 and ordered held on $1,000 cash bail. He pleaded guilty on July 9 and was sentenced to time served, according to court records. He is due back in court in September to pay a $175 surcharge.
After last night’s crash involving the same unlicensed operator, in which a passenger in the cab, described by Riverhead police as a friend of the operator, sustained a head injury, the town will now seek to revoke the taxi company’s business license, the supervisor said. (The passenger, Tarell Holloway, 26, who was airlifted to Stony Brook Hospital last night, was released today, according to a hospital spokesperson.)
The Riverhead-based company, Day and Night Taxi and Limo Inc. had its license revoked in 2013. But a new license was issued to it on July 9 of this year. Town records indicate the company has a new owner, Mohammed Gondal. Gondal was issued a taxi operator’s permit on July 2. A spreadsheet provided by the town clerk’s office did not indicate the reason for revocation.
Gondal could not be reached at the Day and Night Taxi office number, where an employee who answered first said he didn’t know who Gondal was and then provided the phone number for Moonlight Classic Limo. The employee declined further comment. An employee who answered the phone at Moonlight Classic Limo said Gondal no longer worked there.
Riverhead Town adopted an ordinance in 2011 requiring taxi companies doing business in Riverhead and individual taxi cab operators to acquire town permits. The code also requires each vehicle operated by the taxi companies to have a vehicle permit, evidenced by a sticker affixed to the cab.
Town officials cited incidents involving taxi cabs, including car crashes and drugged driving charges, as justification for the new permit requirements.
The new taxi cab law was aimed at improving passenger safety, according to Councilman John Dunleavy, who sponsored the measure.
It prohibits an operator’s permit from being issued to any person convicted of: any felony within the last 10 years; any crime involving the possession or sale of illegal drugs; any crime involving the the operation of a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol; any offense that requires the applicant to register as a sex offender; reckless driving; and endangering the welfare of a child. Operator applicants are required to submit to fingerprint screening.
It also imposes vehicle maintenance and upkeep requirements on cab companies.
But two years after the adoption of the code, when a taxi cab was allegedly used as the getaway car in a Horton Avenue home invasion on April 21, 2013, only eight people held operator permits issued by the town — despite the fact that there were then 26 vehicles, owned by five different taxi companies, licensed as taxicabs by the Town of Riverhead. See April 23, 2013 story, “Riverhead has issued only eight taxicab operator permits since new law required them in 2011.”
Dunleavy at the time blamed lack of enforcement by the town police department, a factor he lamented again today, though he said he did not have current numbers on the required permits.
“It’s a problem in all aspects of town code enforcement,” Dunleavy said, “not just taxi cabs.” He said he believes the police department should step up code enforcement efforts and the town should hire “at least” one more full-time code enforcement officer. It currently has only two.
But Walter said the town has stepped up enforcement of the cab ordinance and has “hugely” enforced the code against Day and Night Taxi and against Williams in particular.
“Nicole Buckner has done an outstanding job,” Walter said of the the code enforcement officer who has taken on the taxi cab code enforcement issue.
The town issued 16 cab operator permits in 2014, according to a spreadsheet provided by Town Clerk Diane Wilhelm, who said she was instructed by the town attorney today not to allow public inspection of the actual permit files maintained in her office. (RiverheadLOCAL today filed a Freedom of Information Law request to review those files, which the website previously reviewed in 2012 and 2013 upon request.) Eighteen operator permits were issued in 2013, but it is not clear from the spreadsheet which permits — good for one year from date of issuance — had expired as of today and which operators have permit applications pending.
As of today, a total of 37 vehicles had taxi cab vehicle permits issued in 2014 or in 2013 after June 30, according to the clerk’s spreadsheet.
One of the vehicle permits was issued in March of this year to Day and Night Taxi for a 2005 Chevrolet, according to the clerk’s spreadsheet. The vehicle involved in last night’s crash was a 2005 Chevy. But the spreadsheet lists the model type as a “SUBN” whereas police said the involved vehicle was a Chevy Venture, which is a minivan. It was unclear from the information provided by the town whether the vehicles are one in the same.
There were five taxi business licenses issued by the town in 2014: Day and Night Taxi and Limo Inc; Best Ride of the Hamptons; Love Transportation Corporation; Four Ones Taxi; and Moonlight Taxi.
All three types of town permits require annual renewal under the town ordinance.
Last summer, Dunleavy said he would seek to change the operator’s permit term to biennial because he believed an annual renewal cost ($100 fee plus $75 for fingerprints) was too steep.
The councilman said at the town board’s Aug. 15 work session he’d received complaints from cab company owners.
Dunleavy said today he had dropped the idea because there was not enough support on the board to pass an amendment.
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