[nagdu] Broadway Cab, two drivers fined for refusing service to blind woman with guide dog

[Ginger Kutsch]

Broadway Cab, two drivers fined for refusing service to blind woman with
guide dog 

By Stuart Tomlinson, The Oregonian 

August 21, 2013 

Source:
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/08/broadway_cab_two_driver
s_fined.html

 

A week after Broadway cab driver Ahmed Egal stopped his taxi on the side of
Interstate 84 during a dispute with two passengers, two other drivers for
the same company refused a ride to a legally blind woman and her guide dog. 

 

Now, following an investigation by the City of Portland's regulatory
division, those two drivers, Hamlet Galstyn and Aram Ambaryan, have been
fined $1,250 each for violating the city code for refusing to transport a
passenger "of proper demeanor who requests services." 

 

On Aug. 1, Deb Marinos, 56, of Salem took an Amtrak train from Salem to
Portland's Union Station on her way to an appointment at OHSU Hospital. At
about 11:30 a.m. an Amtrak worker gave her a ride in a small cart to the
station's cab stand. 

 

Marinos, a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the Oregon Commission for
the Blind, is legally blind. She was accompanied by her seeing-eye dog
Kibble, a 2-year-old black Lab. 

 

But first a Broadway driver, and then a Sassy driver -- Sassy is owned by
Broadway -- refused to take her and her dog to her appointment. Eventually,
two men in another Broadway Cab gave Marinos and her dog a ride. 

 

Regulatory division manager Kathleen Butler said because it was the first
offense for the drivers, they were allowed to pay half the fine, and each
paid $625. The drivers were warned that further violations could lead to
suspension or revocation of their taxi permits. 

 

Broadway Cab Co. was fined $500, Butler said, because a Broadway Cab
dispatcher did not help Marinos get "immediately into a taxi and on her
way." 

 

"We take both these situations very seriously," Broadway Cab president Raye
Miles said of the guide-dog incident and the July 25 incident involving two
women left by the side of Interstate 84. 

 

"We take service dogs in our cabs every day, there are some in our cabs even
as we speak," she said. "Both were isolated incidents, and we are working
hard to make sure something like this doesn't happen again." 

 

Marinos, reached Wednesday afternoon, said she was glad to hear that the
regulatory division took action. 

 

"I feel good that it is now understood that it's going to cost them if they
refuse service dogs," Marinos. "But there is still work to be done."