Hightstown's Taxis Draw Cheers and Jeers

Taxi drivers, their supporters and their detractors were all vocal at Hightstown Borough Council's last meeting Dec. 6, and the issue is unlikely to go away any time soon.

Guillermo Saquicela, of the Twin Rivers community in East Windsor, said he has been a driver with Tu Amigo Taxi in East Windsor for 5 years. He says borough police have been focusing their attention on giving cab drivers $200-$300 tickets when they try to pick people up and drop them off in the downtown area while ignoring unlabeled cabs, an issue others echoed.

"We serve a lot of Spanish and we also serve a lot of American people too," Saquicela said, noting Tu Amigo, the largest company in the area, often helps out at drinking establishments and even gets calls from the bars asking them to come out.

"I don't know if anybody would like to have a drunk person drive instead of just calling for a taxi," he said. "All my drivers, they're citizens," he continued, but he said the unmarked cars are going unnoticed by police and are "taking a lot of our business."

"They're willing to comply with all the rules and all the applications that Hightstown has brought to us," Saquicela said.

"We're here to help everybody."

David Abalos, an East Windsor resident and professor of religious studies and sociology at Seton Hall University who often speaks in support of the borough's Hispanic community, said he was appearing as a member of . The vast majority of taxi patrons and cab company owners are members of the parish, he said, and he expressed his concerns on their behalf and his willingness to help the cab companies comply with the borough's requirements.

Those who hire the taxis "cannot drive, the majority of them, because they don't have licenses and many of them are undocumented, and so they need to get to church, go to work, go to doctors, do food shopping, restaurants, et cetera, and therefore taxi services for them are crucial," he said.

"The Latino community is an integral part of the US and of our local community," Dr. Abalos continued, adding they pay taxes and support local business.

"When we look at the Hightstown [taxi licensing] ordinance, one of the things that disturbs us—the Latino U.S. citizens here as well as the undocumented—is the language requirement," he said, adding he was unaware of any other nearby towns that require taxi drivers to speak English. He also said the insurance liability requirement of $125,000, significantly more than the $35,000 the state requires, was a hurdle to the companies' continued operations.

"And in addition to that, there's been a rash of fines being given out, and again since all the owners and drivers are Latinos it has the appearance of being discriminatory," he said.

Police did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Jose Leon is the owner of Pepito Taxi, which is based in East Windsor, where he lives. Leon asked the council to designate a space for taxis to get and release passengers in the downtown. However, Democratic Councilwoman Isabel McGinty said later in the meeting the matter has been investigated before and there isn't enough space in the downtown to set a spot aside.

Not everyone at the meeting was on the side of the cab companies. J.P. Gibbons, of North Main Street, said an English requirement for drivers made sense in light of the need to read road signs.

"It's not an issue of picking on anyone, it's a safety [issue]," he said. "So when you're looking at your resolution and you're dealing with these, I strong suggest you look at it from the perspective of safety. Your job is to protect the community."

Rob Thibault, of Main Street, a former Republican mayoral candidate, said he too supported an English requirement and insisted on calling undocumented immigrants "illegals."

"Do we want to infantilize them?" he said. "All of us are immigrants; all of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents had to learn English to survive. We were all able to do it. Is the Latino population any different? I think not."

Thibault said he also supports the heightened insurance liability requirement. "If I get injured, who's going to pay?" he said. "Even $150,000 isn't much when you look at health insurance costs these days."

Paul Byrne, of Stockton Street, said he supported the taxi companies' right to operate in the borough. He said he wanted the council to be "proactive" and to show "a heartfelt interest in wanting them to survive and wanting them to meet [borough requirements] instead of , 'Well you didn't do this, didn't do this.'"

If the borough tried to help the cab companies survive, he said, "it would show good faith."

Borough officials discussed the possibility but decided against taking any formal action.