Ortiz details coordinated enforcement, trainings, and weekly reports
Ortiz acknowledges noncompliance is serious and unfair to compliant businesses. He describes coordinated enforcement with sister agencies, summonses, confiscations, police trainings, weekly reports on licensed actors, and updated driver licenses to reduce falsification.
Thank you for that question, Chair.
And I want to echo also the sentiments raised earlier in the opening statements that noncompliance is a serious problem, particularly for businesses that are following the rules.
And I think it's inherently unfair that a business that follows the rules in one situation feels that others are getting away scot-free.
But for that reason, we have been working closely with our sister agencies to stand up coordinated enforcement activities.
That includes summonses.
That also includes, at times, confiscations.
That includes trainings that we provide to the police officers.
We also provide weekly reports to our sister agencies so they are aware of who the licensed actors are.
And ideally identify quicker who the unlicensed actors are.
We've also worked to update even what could seemingly sound like a minuscule thing, but updating the driver license, the pedicab driver license that drivers receive so it's harder to falsify.
We've been working on these initiatives throughout the past three years, candidly,
with our sister agencies in a measure to address compliance.
That also ties into what we've been doing newly in this past year, in this administration, which is creating deeper ties with stakeholders.
insurers met multiple times now with, to call out a few names, the New York Pedicab Alliance, the Times Square bid, the Broadway Association, because we recognize that this is an issue that still requires more attention from the city.
And from our perspective, this hearing is an opportunity for all of us, and especially the stakeholders, to raise those concerns because we do want to come up with solutions.