A Taxi Ride Refusal Story
Yanny: Welcome back to Working Class Heroes Podcast. My name is Yanny And what you're about to hear is not episode 3 to the taxi War series but we will be releasing that soon. Today we have a really interesting story for you all and to tell that story we have Julian. Hi Julian!
Julian: Hey Yanny, thanks for kicking this off.
Yanny: Yeah, can you let us know what this story’s about?
Julian: actually before we get into the story I wanted to ask you a question because I think it gets to the story. But the question is what is your most common complaints about cab drivers?
Yanny: Woo, what a question. Okay, I have good and bad cabbie stories and I would say sexism, feeling uncomfortable in the back of the cab, and fighting about, well not often but fighting about how much I should pay for this fare.
Julian: You’re fighting with drivers about how much to pay for the fare but don’t they have a meter in the car to determine that?
Yanny: Not usually, I normally call my cab from la base, the base, the garage. So they’re predominantly black cars. I don't really have Yellow Cabs or take have to have noodles because they don't take me to the Bronx so I learned early on to rely on la base or the train.
Julian: Got it, that makes sense. And that's really a common experience for many passengers here in New York City is that they are often refused service when they are trying to get to the outerboroughs and that obviously has a disproportionate impact on people of color in particular black passengers who are trying to get to wherever really in the outer boroughs. It's terrible in part because our public transportation system is fantastic. Note the sarcasm. And so many people in a bind are like “hey let me just jump in a yellow cab and it takes me to where I need to go before the N train or the 4 train or whatever. Yeah, it sucks and I'm sorry that you had to deal with that.
Yanny: Yeah, and I'm sure a lot of people have their own experience with that. I'm sure that, you know, you listening to this right now are probably thinking about your own stories.
Julian: The funny thing about what you just said is that it actually connects directly to the story that we want to tell. And that's a story of an incident of Taxi refusal. And the story is really about the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, being denied service by two yellow cab drivers. One of them is Mohamed Mansouri and the other is Jose Guerrero, who is actually my father.
Yanny: Wow, ok, so when did this story take place? I feel like I would remember the mayor of San Juan getting kicked out of a cab.
Julian: It’s been a bunch of years. This happened in 2015 before Uber basically tried to take over the Yellow Cab industry, before the Medallion market crashed and before nine drivers died by suicide to protest their conditions and their worsening conditions. The interview with Jose is actually three years after the fact, after the incident. I sat down with Jose in September 2018 to talk about this incident because he never really said anything about his whole experience, his side of the events, when it all went down.
Yanny: You mention your father and Muhammad are there any other key players or any thing that you would like listeners to keep an ear up for while they take on this story with us?
Julian: Besides Carmen Cruz and the two drivers that were mentioned I think people should really try to listen to Melissa Mark-Viverito’s role in all this. She was the city council speaker at the time for the New York City Council. Obviously, Uber and de Blasio and what their roles are later on in 2015.
Yanny: It's really unfortunate that it took your father 3 years to even tell his side of the story so I’m curious, why this story? Why now?
Julian: I think the reason why we want to talk about the story and share with everyone listening is that this issue that continues to perpetuate, to exist, and that people continue to have to deal with day-in and day-out has really not been addressed in a constructive or creative way. And I think many of the times that we have seen this issue come up in public dialogue has been largely to further the credibility and reputation of certain politicians who take advantage of this situation. And so I think it would be great if we could delve deeper into this issue, maybe try to correct the record if we can and illuminate this issue for our listeners so that they understand what is actually happening here.
Yanny: Great! Well, you know, really excited to see how this story provides context for their battle unfolding today. So where do we start?
Julian: Let's start with an interview that Carmen Cruz did a few weeks after this incident went down.
Herson Barrero: “Great to be back and seeing you mayor. I think the last time we heard about you, you were in a cab taking to the Bronx and they didn’t want to pick you up..”
Carmen Cruz: “I was trying to get to the bronx..And once we were in, “well, what do you mean? I’m going to the Bronx” - “well, no, I don’t know where that address is” I said “well use your GPS” - “I don’t have GPS” The point was that they don’t want to take us to the Bronx and they told us to get out of the cab so...but I have to thank everybody in New York City because they were really good about it.
Julian: This clip is from an interview Carmen did with CITY AND STATE TV’s interviewer, Herson Barrero on May 27th, 2015, 22 days after the incident.
But to back up just a bit. If the name Carmen Cruz rings any bells, you might remember her from her sparring with President Trump after Hurricane Maria had devastated Puerto Rico in 2017. The US Government was bungling the disaster relief plans. Trump was filmed flipping paper towels into a crowd of Puerto Ricans waiting in line for FEMA supplies.
Cruz called him out on it, Trump blasted her on Twitter, you can imagine how this went. But let’s get back to 2015, to where we left off in the interview, with Carmen’s opinion on why addressing taxi service refusal is important...
Carmen Cruz: “And uh, I think it helped to heighten the need to know that transportation is something that is basic when people are trying to do better for themselves, so in that respect it was good that it happened and that I could use my voice as a microphone for those who do not have a microphone. You know, you would be amazed at the amount of reporters that said “that’s happened to me”, that happened to me, the people, in facebook and twitter so..but people in New York were very nice. They brought me two little cabs and a little taxi stand where it said “Don’t even think of parking here”.
Herson Borrero /CITY & STATE Interviewer: “You felt like a New Yorker”
Carmen Cruz: “Yes, it was nice. And It doesn't matter if you're a mayor of a city you're trying to get somewhere a good transportation system and access to transportation or the lack thereof is also a way to discriminate against people. I was staying in this wonderful little hotel, quite inexpensive, outside of Manhattan and we're doing it precisely because Melissa Mark-Viverito is always looking after her district so we were staying over there.”
Julian: Everybody has a story when a taxi driver refused to take them somewhere. I’m sure there was that one time it even happened to you. You tend to get the most pushback from yellow cabs when you’re in the outer-boroughs, you know, queens, brooklyn, the bronx. Then there’s those stories of black or brown passengers, and from young passengers or maybe a group of young folks, as they would say, being turned down or ignored by cabbies driving in empty cars while they’re in Manhattan. For people in wheelchairs, hailing a cab is a whole ordeal of its own.
But listening to Cruz tell her story, it feels like there’s some gaps to her it. Like there’s more to it than she’s saying...
JG: It was May 5th of 19...- 2015, Cinco de Mayo, and there were a lot of people in the street. It was raining, drizzling, dark night. Somebody hailed me and I just told em to come over to my cab. And three people came in. Two women sat in the back and a man sat in the front.
Julian: The cab that Carmen Cruz and her staff are stepping into is that of Jose Guerrero.
JG: They told me they were going to 49th street and four something, four hundred something East 49th street, so I said sure. Let’s go. And then in the middle of the ride the man pulls out, like a little business card from a hotel. And it said 500 something 149th street or very close to that, in the Bronx. Now I never refused any fares. I’ve had no complaints with customers, from the customers to the TLC, at all. I’ve always picked up Blacks, I’ve always picked up Spanish people. So, in the middle of the ride the guy says its in the Bronx so I asked him. I asked everybody, I asked the lady, the Mayor, I says, I didn’t know she was a Mayor, she was just a woman, I ask her if she knew how to get there. I didn’t have a GPS. And she said rather snottily, she says that if I knew how to get there I would be driving myself. Alright okay who cares what her attitude was or whatever. But then I said is it around Grand Concourse? She said no. Is it around Park Avenue? No. She just said no to everything and then she turned around to her friends and said “he doesn't want to take us to the Bronx”. I said “why do you say that”? I'm asking you where is it around? What do you mean I want to take you? Why do you say that? “Well, because this is America and I can say whatever I want”.
JG: Then I said “look I don't have a GPS, the newer taxis have GPS. I'm going to bring you over to 7th Avenue and then, it was about three blocks away, it was drizzling, it wasn’t raining that hard, but it was drizzling, but I offered to bring them over to 7th Avenue where there's empty cabs passing every minute. Or every second at the time. And I wanted to go because, at the time everything in the cab industry is timing. In other words, you get into Manhattan at 5pm-6 and it stays busy until 7 or 8 with people going to wherever they want to go to, like Madison Square Garden or to the theater or if they want to go to restaurants or whatever. So it becomes rather slow from 8 to about 10pm but it's a beautiful time to get a long ride because you can make money rather than just driving around in an empty cab with 4,000 empty cabs around you.
JG: So I brought them over and they got out, I remember that she said “1V11”, which is the medallion number of my cab, which she noticed, you know I knew that she was doing, there's nothing wrong with that.
Julian: She didn't have GPS on her phone?
JG: No, no, she didn't mention anything she didn't say anything and I remember distinctly saying this car has no GPS.
Julian: And nowadays when somebody jumps in your car what's the typical reaction? I’m sure many people are surprised that you don't have a phone?
JG: Oh yeah, oh my God, how do you talk to your children? I said I don't talk to them, they’ll have to wait until I get home to know if something happened. I know it's not the most modern way of dealing with the situation but then again, hey, I'm still around, you know. It's not the end of the world.
Julian: Even though Carmen Cruz frames it as just an issue of discrimintation, Jose’s story paints a bigger picture. This incident is about something else. Jose thinks it’s about unrealistic expectations people have of cabbies.
JG: But what it is is that people think that we know absolutely every nook and cranny of the city and that is not true. There's so many places.
Yes, sometimes they take you to Brooklyn Heights often but then again they bring you there that often, but there's many places that they take you I didn't know I had any idea existed and then I say aha! I know how to get there but then they bring me back two years later when I have forgotten absolutely everything. So you know people have to realize that, but people also have the attitude that Yellow Cabs don't like to go to the Bronx, Brooklyn or whatever.
That's not the point, we don't work those boroughs, especially in my situation, because if you bring me at three in the morning to Utica Avenue and Eastern Parkway, well who else is there? Even the Flies are sleeping, there's absolutely nobody around and whoever is around might be a wise guy or something like that, so what do we do, we shoot right back into the city, because that's where there's some people, that's where there's still people all night long, even though they say that New York doesn't sleep but New York sleeps, trust me when I tell you.
JG: I remember the first day that I drove a taxi.
Julian: Back in 1978…
JG:A man asked me to take him to the Plaza Hotel. And I said can you tell me where it is? **laughter** Really true, that happened. First of all the Yellow Cabs, we generally stay in Manhattan especially more so at night. And so if somebody gets into my cab now, they say “listen I'm going to some place in Brooklyn” I say “look I don't have GPS can you direct me?” and because it's at night most of them are going back home and they say “sure, take this, take that, like this” and I take it and sooner or later, before you know it, I'm there.
Julian: Nowadays people have GPS on their phone and it’s pretty common, what do you think about that?
JG: I think it's a great invention. I really think it is. Especially for someone who's never used it for someone who has relied on memory, yeah it makes it much easier, but I don't have a phone, that's it, I just don't have a telephone now. So therefore I don't have GPS.
Julian: Statistics on how many passengers get refused service are hard to come by. But all parties involved would agree that it’s a somewhat common occurrence. So much so that if you ride in a yellow or green cab long enough you’ll likely hear this public service announcement.
“Our doors are always open so is it illegal for a taxi to refuse service because of your race, ethnicity, cultural background, disability or gender or based on your destination if it is within New York City, Westchester, Nassau, or Newark Airport. Please note, borough taxis can’t pick you up in most parts of Manhattan. If you are refused service contact 311. Make sure you have The Medallion or borough taxi number, pick-up location, date and time. We need to know. You can make a difference.”
From the taxi driver’s side, the decision to refuse service isn’t so cut and dry. In our previous episodes, we tried to break down the reasons why a taxi driver might refuse somebody service.
The city’s racially segregated neighborhoods and geographic unevenness play a negative influence on drivers. And these working conditions create pressure on drivers to put profit ahead of ethics. Jose is a taxi driver stuck in a time before GPS, Uber and smartphones. Jose was shocked though to see how the story had been reported the following day.
JG: No, I think I saw I think I saw it in the paper the following day. And I was surprised you know. What can you do, whatever I did, I did, whatever happened, happened and that’s - And if I get a penalty and I have to pay a fine or whatever I will do it because in the long run I admit the fact that I was wrong.
Julian: Jose accepted responsibility for the charges thrown at him. But when I asked if he had ever heard Carmen Cruz’s version of the story, he said no. So I played him a clip:
Reporters: “News 11 tonight - the Mayor of San Juan is claiming she was kicked out of a NYC taxi cab because she wanted to be driven to the Bronx. Man, this is a story all too familiar to many New Yorkers who want to get to the outer-boroughs. Carolina Leid in Greenwich village with the story. Carolina…
Carmen Cruz: The cab driver said “oh, well, this is in the Bronx” and I said “yea” “well, I don’t know how to get there.”
Reporter: San Juan Puerto Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto said the trip to New York City has yet again been amazing but trying to get a cab to take her to her hotel in the South Bronx has really been a headache.
Carmen Cruz: I said “Well, you’re telling me you don’t want to take me to the Bronx” - he says, “no, I’m not telling you that because that would be illegal. But I’m telling you that I don’t know how to get there so you’re going to have to get off and take another cab.” But clearly he didn’t want to go to the Bronx.
Reporter: So she got out and hailed another yellow cab house from Greenwich Village but that wasn't much better.
Carmen Cruz: “He took us there and all the way he was complaining about this is why people don't want to go to the Bronx”
Reporter: Mayor Cruz Soto says she got a taste of what it's like for some people trying to get a cab to the outer boroughs. she told her friend Council speaker, Melissa mark-viverito, who called the TLC.
Melissa Mark-Viverito: I encouraged her to stay in a hotel in my district in the Bronx. And I was very happy that she agreed to do that. So it was pretty disappointing that in her experience in trying to get back to the hotel she was denied a ride.
Carmen Cruz: This is New York City, I mean this is a place where dreams come true where people come and say if I can make it there I can make it anywhere but in order to make it here you have to get to the place where you're going.”
Reporter: And the mayor filed a formal complaint with the TLC using the ID number that she found on the receipt. The TLC confirmed that it is investigating reporting live from Greenwich Village carlena Leid. Channel 7 Eyewitness News.
Julian: I'm curious to hear now what you think after watching how it was framed in the media, how the questions were asked to the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Cruz, you know how she responded herself and how she framed that whole story. What did you think about it?
JG: She’s lying. She's lying because I asked her if she knew how to get there or if, and, I gave her three or four or five different choices. If she says “look it's on the Bruckner and whatever” I know how to get there. Because it was 5 something East whatever street. But at no time did I say I did not want to go. At no time did I refuse to not go. It's just that we don't know every place in the city. This is a gigantic city.
Julian: When I asked Jose why he didn’t clarify his version of events to the New York Times, he said:
JG: I didn't want to make it even worse situation. I didn't want people to start taking pictures and start putting it on the front page of the New York Times or whatever because I refused to take a person. I did not refuse! She didn’t cooperate with me, fine I understand that, but then again I don't think I should have been penalized because I did ask her three or four different things.
Julian: Did you not trust the public that if you said look it wasn't exactly that and I already paid my punishment, already paid the $200 but I wanted to say that it was a little bit more of a nuanced story than that. Do you think the public wouldn't have trusted you or do you think you would have been reprimanded or retaliated against further?
JG: The truth does not exist anymore. Because she said something and that was not the truth and if I had said something people would have said that he’s lying and so this is what we've learned, we learn to distrust everybody and not to believe anything what anybody says so to me it was like a waste of time to me to defend myself, all right, I did something wrong, in 40 years, once I’ve been complained - there’s been one complaint against Jose Guerrero - yo!
Julian: So the truth is dependent on who has the power to get it out there the most?
JG: Absolutely, of course were they going to believe? Who are the people going to believe a taxi driver or the mayor mayor Merida or whatever the hell their name is, umm, whatever, what is her name?
Julian: Melissa mark-viverito or Carmen Cruz?
JG: Carmen Cruz, who were they going to believe? They’re going to believe Carmen Cruz even though she's lying.
Julian: People may agree with these points but it’s about how these types of stories get reported to the public. Those with some social power get to beat up on those without any of it. Nevertheless, the narrative that drivers are racist or discriminatory is what sticks.
From STATE & CITY TV Interview:
HB: “...You took it very well. Being slighted by this cab driver. I don’t know what the TLC did to that drivers…”
Carmen Cruz: “They went through the process, there were two of them. They went through the process And the one that kicked us out received a much harsher penalty than the one who took us and was complaining all the way they took us there. But it was nice.”
Herson Barrero: “You survived it.”
Carmen Cruz: “I survived it and most importantly, thousands of people in New York City survive everyday discrimination and they push on. That’s what is important. That it doesn’t matter where injustice stands up. That there be 10k, 11k, however many, one stands up to injustice.
Herson Barrero: What can I say to that? You know that’s the kind of thing that we hear from politicians in New York. That’s wonderful, I’m sure that the people that are watching this appreciate that…. “