The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 8

8 A Monday, May 28, 1979 Philadelphia Inquirer Good buddies Restaurants 'dispatch' cabs via CB network Si! iUiiStJ fir (111 for a cab and missed a plane. The owner heard about us and said 'What can I do to sign Orenstein recalled. As more restaurants signed up for the service, the workload became more than Orenstein could handle. So he brought some of his fellow United drivers into the system. Today, 20 of them and 30 of the city's restaurateurs have become "good buddies." Whenever the restaurants need cabs, they put out calls over the system for "stagecoaches." The nearest available cabs respond.

"They seem to be independent, aggressive and more dependable," said Riverfront owner Lee Tabas. "We usually have a cab here within five minutes." "They give us extremely excellent service," commented Rick Sirianni, owner of the Le Bistro restaurant. "In the middle of a Saturday when we're all jammed, we'd get taxis here in two to five minutes." Orenstein boasts that 75 percent of all calls are answered in five minutes, and 90 percent within 10 companies to develop radio-dispatched service a move that would require each driver to invest several thousand dollars in new equipment. PUC Transportation Bureau Director William Stouch said that the CB network, which is relatively limited, likely would not qualify as a radio system. "This is great for the elite group that can afford expensive restaurants, but what does it do for the lady on crutches who needs to go to the hospital?" Stouch asked.

Orenstein said he was thinking of ways of expanding the service to serve more segments of the community. He suggested that different channels might be used in different parts of the city. Customers then could call the radio base in their neighborhood, and a dispatcher there could send out the order for a cab. The problem, however, would be convincing more independent drivers to join the network. "If we had more independents, we could do much more," Orenstein said.

The system, however, has come under sharp attack from other United Cab Association members who question its legality, though they are vague as to what is against the law. "They keep saying my service is illegal," Orenstein said. "They're just jealous because I thought of it first. There's a cab problem in this city. I've answered the prbb-lem." Orenstein proudly displays an authorization from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has approved the use of a commercial channel for the system.

The restaurants are classified as "mobiles" by the FCC and the only cost to them is $200 each for a CB unit and license. State Public Utility Commission (PUC) Chairman W. Wilson Goode has praised the concept. "I'm impressed by what I've heard they are doing," said Goode. "I have no problem with that.

It's not against the commission rules and regulations." However, the PUC has been considering requiring independent cab By Ewart Rouse and Jane Shoemaker Inquirer Staff Writers One resourceful group of independent United Cab drivers has found a way to help restaurants survive the chronic cab shortage while at the same time nabbing some of the best nighttime fares in the city. United driver Bernie Orenstein says he got the idea three years ago after listening to the complaints about cab service in Philadelphia from three well-dressed riders. They had been stranded at the Riverfront Restaurant at Front and Poplar Streets; no taxis were cruising in the area, and calls to Yellow Cab had proven futile. When Orenstein picked them up, they were heading on foot for center city and had made it as far as Delaware Avenue and Spring Garden Street. The next day, Orenstein went to the Riverfront and proposed that the restaurant install a citizens' band radio and use it to call him whenever its patrons needed a cab.

The idea quickly caught on. "One customer at the Saloon (restaurant) waited an hour and a half 1 N2 Philadelphia Inquirer GERARD C. BENENE Bernie Orenstein at one of his CB pickup points You can't get a cab? Neither can would-be cabbies Independents Gain On Yellow (PHILADELPHIA CABS IN OPERATION PER DAY, 1961 1979) 1300 UvJ 14 i 1200 mmm YELLOW CABS fLi 1inft OTHER CABS frmm-mm' IS-fT1 YELL0W lj Yellow -sx- Co. sr 200 II it 1 1 1 i I 1 1 1 1 t't i WfT- INDEPENDENTS UV JJ f'" 111 I 1 1 I I 1 I I 1 1 1 INDEPENDENT, From 1-A made a profit for the year of $200 and the last showed a slightly higher profit. "You can't tell me they're paying $35,000 for the opportunity to lose money," he said.

"Come on." Stouch said, however, that it was a losing battle to try to catch the chicanery. The PUC has too few auditors to examine the annual reports of all the independent cab companies in the city. Auditors do, in rare instances, ask for supporting financial data. But when they do, "the figures all add up," he said. The government isn't alone in being cheated.

Riders suffer too, drivers confide. The most common illegal practice, according to the drivers, is tampering with meters to make them run faster. This practice is known as "double bopping" and can be done in a variety of ways. Some meters are "fixed" so that they will run at different speeds depending on the position of the flag. When the driver senses that his passenger is not familiar with the fares or the routes, the flag is dropped to the double bopping position.

The meter clicks faster and the passenger ends up paying more than the legal rate. Another procedure this one used with the new digital meters involves running an extra wire from the meter to the steering column or the headlight-dimmer switch on the floor. Again, if the driver senses that his passenger does not know the city, he will press the dimmer switch or flip a lever installed on the column to accelerate the meter. A driver can hire a mechanic to rig a meter for a bargain-basement S25, one independent reported. A meter rigged in these ways, drivers say, can be detected on close inspection; but, as one driver boasted, "I've been driving a cab for 25 years and nobody ever checked my meter." 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 y.

(iiyiWjW.pil.!lIJllMrlllii iwwiwwirpTiTiTr 1 "We were more or less forced to deal with Somerson," PUC attorney William Hawke recalled. "It was the only way we could see to end the liti-. gation." PUC commissioners disagreed, however, and refused to promise that each United member would be given another cab. Instead, they agreed to consider giving the United owners priority, but they left open the option of approving other applications as well. The PUC began issuing the new certificates in March and, at first, most went to United owners.

But in April, the commissioners voted to award citywide operating rights for 30 cabs to Penn Radio Cab. a United competitor, and Somerson went to Commonwealth Court demanding a new hearing. Evidence of Somerson's influence within the PUC Transportation Divi-, sion staff showed up in that court filing. Attached to his petition was a copy of a secret PUC staff report on Penn Radio's application, a commis-, sion lawyer said. "He had no business having that document," the lawyer complained.

United owners said that Somcrson appeared at one of their meetings in late April and assured them that he would keep Penn Radio's application tied up in court for two years. While Somerson is the most visible of the independent cabbies' defenders, his former associate, Sylvan Einhorn, is working behind the scenes on behalf of approximately 74 United owners. These owners applied for more cabs in 1973 while Yellow Cab was on strike and signed contracts with Einhorn at that time agreeing to pay him $2,000 if new operating rights were issued, according to sources familiar with the arrangement. If all of Einhorn's clients are awarded additional operating Einhorn could earn $148,000 for processing those application forms. "It's steep, sure," said one owner who signed an agreement with Einhorn.

"But if you sign with one law-yer, you're stuck with him." Einhorn refused to discuss his representation of independent cab owners. When asked about his fee, he replied, "You're asking some pretty damn personal questions." Somerson's fee for processing an application is $250. In an interview in his center city office, Somcrson said United drivers do not want to add additional cabs to their certificates. But he said they' would prefer to fight to keep control of the market rather than allow new operators to come in. "It's a matter of basic economy." he said.

"With a United owner, that cab is his pension." "Many people have invested their' life savings don't ask me why," said Somerson. "It's a menial job. a marginal job. Most of these people do it because they are not equipped handle anything better." Driving a cab may be menial and marginal for some, but not for Roger Davis, one of the few independent owners who will confess to making money. Davis, 32.

owns the City Cab. I' -V 4M i. i i i 'i Meter cheaters There are still other ways to cheat on fares without disturbing the meter. The meter is connected to a cable linked to a gear in the transmission. The meter will run faster if the number of teeth on that gear is reduced.

Some primitive cheating fl iiiinfll'Hn rhi PMadriprw tnouni WU.IAM STEIMMCTZ He's lost $24,000 to his dreams of owning a cab, but Rosie Rosenberg says he'd ante up again really thought I could make it. I couldn't." Rosenberg was a Red Arrow trolley driver when a United cab owner first approached him in 1970 and, after giving a convincing sales pitch, offered to sell Rosenberg his business. Rosenberg signed a contract stating that he would pay the cab owner $200 a week for the next six years a total of $62,400. Within the first year, problems cropped up. The 1970 Rambler that was included in the original purchase price broke down and Rosenberg had to buy a new cab.

The drivers he paid to operate the cab began turning in less and less money. He and the partner he brought in in 1972 to share expenses began fighting. In 1973 he "sold" his contract and cab to another man for $6,500 less than half of the amount he had invested. One year later, Rosenberg decided to try again and, along with a new partner, purchased the Creston Cab Co. The two borrowed money from the Yellow Cab employes' credit union Rosenberg once worked for the company but found after 12 months that they could not keep up with the payments.

On May 27, 1975. they sold the company. Rosenberg had invested $4,200 but sold his share for $1,700. A third attempt Just three months later, in August 1975, Rosenberg made his third try at owning a cab company. He borrowed $4,000 from a credit union to buy a cab and then agreed to pay certificate owner Miriam Schectcr, who was living in North Miami Beach, $200 a week for 31 2 weeks a total of $62,400.

This time, he drove the cab without employes or a partner. At first, he said, he did not mind the 18-hour work days necessary to meet the payments. "Then it started to work on my attitude," he said in a recent interview. "It's the pressure that gets to you. it wore me down.

I hated myself." Rosenberg had good reason to feel pressured, for the contract he signed like those signed by most cab buyers stated that if he missed one month's payments, all the money he had invested would go to Mrs. Schecter and the sale would be cancelled. By the fall of 1976, Rosenberg decided that he could no longer live can be accomplished simply by putting undersized tires on a cab. Steven Brody, chief PUC enforcement officer in Philadelphia, says his office has not had any recent complaints about meter tampering. "We only go by the complaints," he said.

"If we get enough complaints, we send a man right out." Profits from rigged meters, though, are infinitesimal compared to the potential income from selling cab operating certificates on the installment plan. "It's highway robbery," declared Louis Rubin, a former PUC attorney who has studied the Philadelphia certificate resale market. (What a cab operator purchases is not actually a piece of paper, but a business that has a PUC certificate giving permission to operate a cab or cabs in Philadelphia.) Prospective cab owners are never told that two or even three new cabs may wear out and have to be replaced while they are making the installment purchase, Rubin said. If car payments, insurance premiums, legal fees, gasoline and routine maintenance are added in, he said, "there's no way you can make it" honestly. $24,000 tor nothing One sad victim of the resale game Is Marvin (Rosie) Rosenberg.

Three times he tried to buy a certificate, but each time the financial burden became too heavy to handle and he had to sell at a sacrifice. In the end he had nothing to show for weekly payments totaling $24,000 over six years. "I thought I was making a good investment," Rosenberg, 53, muttered over a cup of coffee at a diner near the 69th Street Terminal. "I 6 substantial time working on United Cab matters. Lately, United members say, assessments have been added every month.

Somcrson has been campaigning vigorously on United's behalf in Harrisburg since last fall, when the PUC accelerated its attempt to put cabs on Philadelphia's streets. The commissioners had voted early in 1977 to increase the city's cab fleet by at least 200 taxis, but legal maneuvers had delayed consideration of applications. It was not until last year that PUC lawyers came up with a scheme to end the legal haggling. The PUC plan Commission attorneys struck a deal with Somerson and lawyers for the Yellow Cab Co. under which United and Yellow would withdraw all protests to the granting of new operating rights.

In exchange, the PUC would allow the financially troubled Yellow to divide its single operating certificate Into 800 pieces. 400 of which could be used as collateral for loans in blocks of 100. A preliminary version of the deal also called for the PUC to amend the certificates of each of the 117 United members to give each of them rights for an extra cab a plan that would have guaranteed the value of United members' investments and the continuity of the certificate-selling Lichtman said he considers the $.16,000 plus more than $25,000 in interest he will have paid a good investment. "I think of having my own business where I can be my own boss, independent and working on the outside." It is no surprise that cab buyers like Lichtman are concerned about recent efforts by the PUC to issue more independent citywide cab certificates in Philadelphia. "Why am I breaking my a-trying to pay off a certificate that cost me when somebody gets it for $20 (from the PUC)?" he asked.

Lichtman and the other United drivers look to attorney Herbert Somcrson to protect the value of their certificates by fighting both before the PUC and in the courts to limit the number of independent cab owners. Somerson, who has represented United Cab and many of its members for more than 30 years, often has been involved In sales of cab certificates. It is Somerson who keeps the list of cab companies that are for sale and prepares sales contracts. He calls himself a "conduit" between buyers and sellers, adding, "All I get is a legal fee." In addition to the sales fees, Somerson receives $1,170 a $10 assessment from each United member each month in which he spend3 scnting payments of $6,350 to Miriam Schecter. Once again, he sold his interest for less than half his investment.

Today. Rosenberg works for the Upper Darby Cab Co. and lives in a second-floor apartment near the 69th Street Terminal. He believes that he knows where he went wrong. "I was an honest driver," he said.

"I was a straight man. To make it in that business, you had to be a thief." A thief Rosenberg is not. A compulsive gambler, he may be. Despite the tension, the problems and the financial losses, he'd ante up again. "Believe it or not, I was thinking about taking a day half (of a cab) and leasing a night half," he said.

"If you came to me and said you could come up with $3,500, I'd do it all over again." Jackpot for some But, for some drivers, the gamble pays off the first time. Lenny Lichtman put down $10,000 toward a cab certificate four years ago and ever since has been making weekly payments $250 at first, $200 now to a credit union. This time next year, he expects to own all the stock of the Sianwood Taxicab free and clear. It has been a struggle, he said, to meet the payments and and keep his cab in good operating condition, but "if you want to be in business for yourself, you have to pay for it." which had revenues of $40,000 last year and a net income, after salaries and taxes, of $12,000. Davis paid his way through college in Illinois by driving a cab in Chicago.

Cab driving "got in my blood," he said, so he decided to make it his career. "I know an awful lot of indepen-' dent owners in New York, and I have traveled a lot of places like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington." he said. "In those places, booking (earning in fares) $80 and $90 a day is unheard of. That's average for us. "Philadelphia, with the exception of Atlantic City, is probably the best city in the country to drive a cab in." said Davis, who has driven hert since 1973.

"There are just so few cabs, wt make a killing. Atlantic City may ba ocuer, oui men that only season Th decline of YeJ. TOMORROW; low Cab. with the financial burden and emotional strain. He had a stack of cancelled checks an inch thick, fepre-.