The Eurotaxi association has lashed out against the taxi regulations recently approved by the Arrecife City Council and has stated that it is "illegal". In particular, they criticize one of the articles, number 12, which prohibits "any system, station or radio-taxi exchange parallel to the communication and fleet management center." For Eurotaxi, this is the same as "destroying" their station. The group will now wait for the Arrecife City Council to decide to "give the order to close" its station in order to "take the necessary measures."
"It doesn't mention us, but it does talk about monopolizing the service, which would leave us out," say two workers, who assure that the Arrecife City Council "has no power to have a station." These employees suspect that the regulation has been made "tailor-made" to harm their association and benefit the San Marcial Cooperative.
"It's a mess. Not even a little kid would do it. It doesn't count on us for anything and we are the object of persecution," says Francisco Javier Guadalupe, who was harshly criticized in April by the president of the Arrecife taxi drivers' association, Manuel Guillén, for operating outside the single center. At that time, Guadalupe even claimed that he had suffered "threats" for providing the service at the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital.
Guadalupe believes that with the approval of this regulation, the Eurotaxi association is "in an even worse place." "They give the advantage, the power and the control of everything to the other cooperative. The councilor cannot pretend that that cooperative manages the advertising that the taxis will carry, hires it and charges for it, when we are a private company," he criticizes. For this reason, he believes that this new regulation for the sector "smells burnt, something very strange, a scam."
"It's a lie"
Sanginés assured that this regulation had been "agreed" with the taxi drivers' association, something that Eurotaxi denies. "It's a lie. There was a meeting and there were 19 out of 180 taxi drivers. Of these, three were from Eurotaxi. He hasn't spoken to anyone, because he only speaks to two managers from the San Marcial Cooperative," they say.
In addition, this association also wonders how it is possible that the City Council has approved this regulation without resolving the two allegations presented by one of its workers. "They haven't answered me, how are they going to approve it? They can't apply it," says Guadalupe, who continues to denounce "threats and persecution" by some members of the taxi sector. "I'm having a bad time and I already went to court once, but I can't be there all day," he says.
