Dale Evans of Charley’s Taxi had enough: Listen to her podcast interview
Hawaii politics has no consequence for stupidity, to quote from Dr. Peter Tarlow from SaferTourism. Chaos is ruling Hawaii. Elected officials like U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the Hawaii Tourism Authority, and Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB) are running away from COVID-19. They are not responding and are directing frustrated callers to full voicemail systems. The CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority retired early and is escaping to Colorado.
Today, Hawaii had the highest increase in COVID-19 infections ever, topping the United States on a percentage scale.
This is a letter Dale Evans, CEO of Honolulu-based Charley’s Taxi, wrote today so her company could continue to operate. She is sharing her frustration on the scary situation Hawaii is now entering into with an uncontrollable spike in coronavirus cases.
Listen to the podcast.
Her letter explains just some of the issues businesses are going through in the new reality of COVID:
Charley’s Taxi always are operating 24/7 to provide the residents & visitors with “Essential Services”. Obviously, we are suffering a significant financial loss.
This is our 82nd year of service to the Honolulu community, we somehow survived WWII and other economic crisis, not to mention all 12 bills and resolutions since 2014 that resulted in few/no rules on UBER & LYFT, continuing stringent restrictions and costs on taxicab operators …. but our situation today is critical.
Since we were the first (and only) company to submit our license renewal applications, the city is allowing other transporters to operate without licenses. Would you please arrange for IMMEDIATE REFUND of $2000 for the Taxi and TNC licenses. If you will issue the TNC license right away, you can disregard fee refunds. We continue waiting for CSD to finally answer, instead of ignoring our several requests to your administration: (a) 3 FOIA requests unanswered; (b) Repeated requests to change the HAR 9 to allow taxicab operators to pass on costs-of-business; and (c) Request renewal of AllWays Charley’s TNC license.
