By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton faces difficulty in enforcing municipal taxi regulations on car service Uber and is unwilling to take on the company in any legal battle, a councilwoman said Thursday.
The town is in the midst of preparing a new taxi ordinance that all cab drivers will be subject to, including Uber. The measure will mostly mirror the old borough and township ordinances, said Councilwoman Jenny Crumiller, who is part of a council committee working on the measure.
Those old regulations remain in effect until the council adopts a new ordinance, part of the harmonization process officials are going through to create new municipal laws for the consolidated town. The town has five years from Jan.1, 2013, the day the merged Princeton was born, to have a unified set of ordinances.
She said Uber drivers are subject to existing regulations, but she said they are difficult to enforce given that Uber uses private drivers in unmarked cars.
“It’s very difficult to enforce something on someone you can’t see or find,” said Council President Bernard P. Miller, who is part of the same committee with Ms. Crumiller. “We’ve wrestled with it, and we have not found a straight-forward way of implementing it.”
He said there has been discussion of state lawmakers creating regulations to put Uber under some of the same requirements that regular cab drivers fall under, including insurance requirements and vetting of drivers. He said it would make more sense for the state to craft the regulation rather than have individual towns do it on their own.
“It’s a state issue,” Councilwoman Jo S. Butler said Thursday. “I think as currently configured, Uber is not legal in Princeton.”
Ms. Crumiller said she is aware that Uber drivers operate in town but that none have gone through the steps to get the necessary licenses to own and operate a cab in town. She acknowledged that it creates an underground business, but said the town was not interested in using a sting operation to catch drivers in the act.
“We don’t want to take on the legal expense of taking on Uber,” she said Thursday.
Ms. Butler said it would be up to police Chief Nicholas K. Sutter to determine whether it’s “a good use of our resources to pursue Uber drivers in Princeton.”
“We don’t have unlimited resources,” Ms. Butler said. “To my knowledge, we have not had a lot of complaints about Uber drivers.”
An Uber representative could not be reached for comment. According to the company website, “Uber is not a transportation provider. No need to tip. Flat rates apply to direct trips between specified locations.”
Ms. Crumiller said the town is waiting to see what the state and other towns do in handling the Uber issue. In the meantime, the council is expected to consider the new taxi ordinance in May, Ms. Crumiller said.