A group of ten Uber drivers will be offering free or donation-based rides in Portsmouth during New Years Eve.
On a website created to promote the offer, they identify as “just some of your local Uber drivers tired of being chased around Portsmouth by cops and crazy taxi drivers.”
By not charging for service and by scheduling rides in advance the drivers are able to operate legally in Portsmouth because their actions will not be regulated under the transportation ordinance. The group has indicated plans to continue operating similarly in January.
The group includes multiple Uber drivers who have continued driving in Portsmouth in defiance of the new transportation ordinance, under which all Uber drivers are driving illegally except for two drivers who have individually purchased their own commercial insurance policies.
The group also includes Free Uber founder Christopher David who was arrested by Portsmouth PD in November on felony wiretapping charges for posting a YouTube video of a Portsmouth bouncer & taxi driver calling the police on him while picking up an Uber customer outside Daniel Street Tavern.
The website continues, “We tried persuading the city council to allow us to operate freely in Portsmouth. No such luck. They killed all three amendments to the transportation law requested by Uber. Back to square one! We’ll try again with the new council, but in the meantime we’re going to try something a little different.”
This Monday, the group started taking ride requests on a dedicated reservation website. Interested riders will be manually matched with a driver.
In addition to the council killing Uber’s three requested amendments, the group’s action is motivated partly by Portsmouth’s largest taxi company threatening to pull their cabs out from Portsmouth to Dover on New Years Eve, exactly as one taxi owner admitted in a letter to the transportation commission they did in Thanksgiving Eve, intending to send a message to the city council.
Uber drivers have faced continued harassment from taxi drivers since the ordinance went into effect in September. At Monday’s meeting, “Uber Grandma” Stephanie Franz, who has accumulated $3,500 worth of fines under the new ordinance, said to the council: “I fear the taxi cab drivers. My car’s been blocked in. I’ve had stuff thrown at it. They take pictures of my car. They take pictures of me. They yell at me. They’ve done a lot of different things.”
“It is unfortunate that the city council sided with the taxi proponents who have been actively harassing Uber drivers,” said Free Uber founder Christopher David. “They even intentionally inconvenienced Portsmouth residents and guests by coordinating a withdrawal of their taxis to Dover on busy Thanksgiving Eve. Meanwhile Uber drivers are just trying to fill a need in Portsmouth and face daily harassment. The new city council should empower them to operate freely and in peace. Portsmouth residents and guests deserve to make up their own minds which transportation service to use, without outside interference.”
Regardless of the city council’s actions, the Portsmouth transportation ordinance will likely expire in mid-to-late 2016.
In July, Governor Hassan signed a bill forming a bipartisan committee to consider regulating ride-sharing statewide. On December 7th, committee members introduced legislative services request 2016-2957. According to the bill’s primary sponsor and a draft of the house bill’s text, the bill will preempt all local governments. If it passes, Portsmouth’s transportation ordinance will become void two months after the bill is signed.
In the meantime, a group of Uber drivers will continue providing service to those who want it, regardless of the harassment and legal obstacles they face.
Recorded December 22nd, 2015
Super activist extraordinaire Christopher David joins us in the Rebel Love studio this week. Topics include Christopher’s heroes journey through activism, the great Rand Paul debate, NH Independence, Free Uber activism in Portsmouth, Uber Grandma, sauna parties, Christopher David running for state rep? Merrimack county Sheriffs visiting the Rebel Love Studio, and going Full Keene in the Free Coast. The Rebel Love Show airs every Tuesday night at 10 pm EST on LRN.FM and Rebelloveshow.com/live
Originally inspired by the libertarian “Hammer of Truth” blog, which featured multiple authors, I launched Free Keene nine years ago, on December 27th, 2006. At that time, there was exciting civil disobedience and street theatre being performed here in Keene by early Free State Project movers. I wanted there to be a place for area activists to post news, media, and opinion about the fun things happening here.
Prior to this blog, there was already the “Keene Free Press” newspaper edited and distributed by civil disobedience superactivists Russell and Kat Kanning. I moved in 2006 as part of the FSP and brought my nationally syndicated talk radio show, “Free Talk Live“, with me. When Free Keene launched at the end of 2006, liberty media in Keene continued to grow. The first post to the Free Keene blog was the premiere episode of “Free Minds TV“, a show hosted by area natives and produced by several Free State Project early movers.
Various new media efforts and Free Keene blog personalities followed, including several whose personal journeys led them out of New Hampshire eventually, as well as a couple who publicly resigned. Keene in many ways has become an activist Mecca, with some bloggers cutting their teeth here and moving on to other parts of the Shire, like JJ Schlessinger. JJ founded and produced Free Keene TV, which eventually became Shire TV, and now he’s a video professional in Manchester.
The Free Keene blog has become a go-to source for original NH news reporting, in addition to its traditional role of promoting activist media and opinion. Free Keene has long been a Google News source and has been responsible for breaking news (scooping other media) as well as providing video footage for mainstream media reports across New Hampshire. Our site has been privately thanked by multiple mainstream media members for providing them with content.
Free Keene‘s scope has also widened over the years, from originally focusing on Keene-area activism and news to Shire-wide reporting. Free Keene’s bloggers are physically distributed across the southern tier of New Hampshire, including Keene, Manchester, and the Seacoast, and we’ll certainly report on liberty activism and news-of-interest across the Shire. (more…)
Get a fresh perspective on NH activism from Keenevention‘s New Movers Panel of people who’ve moved for the Free State Project within the last year, hosted by new-mover-to-Peterborough and author Dr. Tarrin Lupo. Panelists included Dax Seal, Jeremy Kauffman, Bruno Parga, and Gloria Leustek:
Big thanks to our 2015 video sponsor – Roberts & Roberts Brokerage – when you’re serious about precious metals – they take bitcoin!
On December 23, 2015 The Rebel Love Studio was visited twice by agents of the state, specifically the Merrimack County Sheriffs department. They had a warrant for the arrest of a porcupine that they assumed lived at the location. The first visit I was not present at the location, I was for the second. I arrived at the location while on my lunch break from my day job. The purpose of my visit was to bring coffee to Ann Leverette, my fiance and cohost of the Rebel Love Show and Flaming Freedom. She was there for the first visit and I wanted to check in to see if she was doing alright. Now being the voluntaryist that I am, I do not consent to give such men authority over me, regardless of what shiny badge they are representing. I will not help them kidnap anyone. I decided to no cooperate in their hunt when they informed me of why they were there. As punishment for not complying with the sheriffs, I was threatened with arrest(kidnapping) and given a summons(letter of extortion) for my car that I wasn’t even driving at the time I was confronted.
Within a few minutes of being approached by the sheriffs, multiple other porcupines including one of the cohost of the Anarchics, Renee Kate came to my aid. Now to be perfectly honest, I feel as if we did not handle this interaction with agents of the state well. There were positives and negatives from my perspective. The negative being we simply spoke too much. The more and more interactions I have with the police, which seems to never end, the more I am leaning to only saying what needs to be said without being arrested. The positive being that we did have plenty of people recording and had back up within minutes. That is something I would wager a bet on is not something that most people can say when interacting with police officers.
Monday night the Portsmouth city council killed all three amendments requested by Uber that would have allowed all Uber drivers to operate legally in Portsmouth.
At the public hearing before the vote, Uber supporters outnumbered opponents about two to one. One taxi loyalist accused Uber drivers of “laughing at” the police because he saw an Uber driver park often right next to a police car downtown. Except “Uber Grandma” Stephanie Franz then stepped to the podium to say that driver was her. Why park there? She said:
“I do that because I fear the taxi cab drivers. My car’s been blocked in. I’ve had stuff thrown at it. They take pictures of my car. They take pictures of me. They yell at me. They’ve done a lot of different things.”
Additional reports of taxi drivers harassing Uber drivers and customers all fell on deaf ears. Ordinance architect Asst. Mayor Jim Splaine urged everyone to vote down all three amendments requested by Uber, which they did.
Splaine even jumped into the Free Uber Facebook page comments to defend the ordinance, erroneously claiming: “We’ve created a free market” by forcing Uber drivers to register with the city.
Portsmouth resident Jason Walls blasted the council’s actions in an op-ed published today in the Portsmouth Herald:
What I saw [Monday] was a group of people listen to a vast majority of interested parties in favor of abolishing the ordinance or, at the very least, adding the amendments requested by Uber to allow us to move on in the short term, and then, subsequently, completely ignore those people and pass the buck onto the next council. In the meantime, Taxi drivers will continue to harass Uber passengers, police will continue to waste time policing the ordinance, and all of this will happen during the holiday season when a surge of ride-sharing drivers is needed most.
This is dangerous and despicable. It’s disgusting to me as a resident and taxpayer. The council members, save for Thorsen and Dwyer, should be ashamed. The headlines should read “Council votes to delay safer Portsmouth” or “Council votes to continue increased drunk driving risks.” You had an opportunity to end this, or at least refrain from enforcement, until this time when it is needed most is over, and you didn’t – even those with nothing to lose on their way out. Let the record show.
Councilor Thorsen, who together with Councilor Dwyer, was one of the only voices of reason during the debate, had the best quote of the night, admitting that the council “didn’t really even know what we’re talking about”:
“I have a little bit of concern over this whole process just because, for example in our last meeting, I went away scratching my head because I was told that our process is better than Uber’s process, for example background checks. And at the same time, we were told we don’t know what Uber’s background check is. Now either one.. you can’t say both. And yet we said both right up here on the council, which told me we didn’t really even know what we’re talking about. And that concerns me in this whole process.
Now we had some feedback from the police department, and that’s good. But again, I don’t think that in trying to get down to the 15 versus 7 [years for the background checks] — I don’t agree with 15, I think we should be at 7 because that’s what most are.
I wanted to be able to address that. I’m going to have to leave it to the next council. We have several young people up on the next council. I think they’re going to have a different opinion than this council. I hope that they do and I hope that they get Uber into Portsmouth as soon as they possibly can.”
The turf war on the streets of Portsmouth continues. Eyes now turn to the new city council and their first meeting January 11th.
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