By Jeff Rowes
Massachusetts entrepreneur Erroll Tyler refuses to quit, and his persistence led to an inspiring economic liberty victory in June.
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IJ client Erroll Tyler has been battling Bay State bureaucrats for three years in an effort to start up his nautical tours business.
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Erroll owns Nautical Tours, a Medford, Mass.-based company planning to offer amphibious tours of the streets of Boston and Cambridge and the waters of Boston Harbor. Nautical Tours will use state-of-the-art “Hydra Terras,” which, unlike the refurbished WW-II era military landing craft you see in tourist spots, are designed specifically for sightseeing.
For three years, Erroll sought a jitney license from Cambridge, which is just across the Charles River from Boston and is where each Nautical Tours journey will begin and end. A jitney license allows a transportation service, like a bus, to operate along a fixed route. One of IJ’s first economic liberty cases involved jitney vans in New York City, and opening up protectionist transportation markets to grassroots entrepreneurs is a major goal of ours in this case.
Cambridge refused time and again to grant Erroll a jitney license, dismissing him on the grounds that the city does not “need” another tour business. In doing so, Cambridge was simply protecting existing businesses from competition. Erroll’s dream of starting his own business was stalled.
Then, last summer, IJ came aboard and filed another application on his behalf. Predictably, Cambridge denied the license, stating again that Nautical Tours was not needed. But this time Nautical Tours was ready, and we filed an appeal with the state of Massachusetts. After discovery and briefing, during which IJ emphasized that protecting existing businesses from competition was not a constitutionally legitimate basis for denying a jitney license, the state gave Erroll the permission he needs to get rolling.
It may not, however, be smooth sailing for Erroll just yet. Boston has told IJ that it will not permit Erroll into the city without a “sightseeing” permit that the city candidly tells us it has no intention of granting to Erroll. We at IJ are used to fighting ridiculous licensing requirements the government seeks to impose on our clients, but Boston’s insistence on obtaining permission to merely sightsee takes absurdity to a whole new level.
As amazing as it sounds, the heart of Boston’s objection is simply that Erroll’s passengers, as opposed to passengers on a regular, non-sightseeing bus, will be on-board primarily to enjoy views of Boston, and, according to the city, people are not allowed to enjoy the view without permission. Remember, Erroll has a license from the state to pick up passengers outside of Boston and go through the city like a normal bus because he has demonstrated that he is ready, willing and able to do so honestly and safely. Erroll will not be picking up or discharging any passengers within the city. Thus Boston’s decision to apply the sightseeing law to Nautical Tours serves no legitimate public health and safety interest. Indeed, it is not clear that the law even applies to companies like Nautical Tours that pass through the city without opening the doors.
To make matters even worse from a public policy perspective, Boston’s mayor, who imposed a moratorium on issuing new licenses like the one Erroll seeks, is an investor in a successful Boston-area amphibious tour company. So, although the mayor claimed the ban on new permits is somehow justified by Boston’s nearly completed Big Dig public works project, legitimate questions can be raised as to whether his administration is simply trying to protect existing businesses from competition.
Erroll did not come this far to run aground on the shoals of Boston’s bureaucracy, and IJ will be there to navigate as he continues his odyssey for economic liberty.
Jeff Rowes is an IJ staff attorney.