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Houston’s mayor and city council Wednesday morning unanimously voted to delay handing out any new permits for taxi cabs.
A formula prescribed by city ordinance decrees the city should issue another 211 cab permits, which are usually coveted by taxi operators.

But councilmembers concerned about the health of the taxi industry decided against putting more cabs on the streets.
Big cab companies lobbied against issuing more permits, arguing that their industry has barely begun recovering from the terrorist attacks of 2001.
Meanwhile, some smaller cab operators complain that the taxi business is healthy and big cab companies are trying to stifle competition.
Geno Sanders, for example, will tell you business is good. “If I tell you I’m gonna be there, I’m gonna be there. I have business cards all over China.  I mean, Chinese people love me!”

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Sanders leases his cab for about $800 a month from a company that owns his taxi and holds the license.

He’d like to have his own license, but he can’t get one. “Little guys like myself haven’t got a chance.”

Houston hasn’t handed out any new taxi licenses since 2001.

Mayor Bill White’s administration figures a city ordinance will require the city to hand out another 211 permits this year.

But city officials want to delay issuing those new permits.

Big cab companies do not want new cabs on the streets of Houston.

They argue their industry has barely recovered from the terrorist attacks of 2001.

And they contend that more cabs on the streets of Houston could actually cause a recession in the taxi industry.

“The taxicab industry, the visits to the airport, is really down.  Do we really want to throw a lot of permits on them now and cause them to go down more,” said Toni Lawrence who sits on Houston’s city council.

But a lot of smaller cab operators think the city just needs to change the way it distributes permits. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re trying to monopolize the business.  They’re trying to run all the mom-and-pops out.”

That’s the conflict between cabbies that city officials plan to study before rolling more taxi permits onto the streets of Houston.