Door-to-door service

Next time you see someone stumbling out of a Main Street bar, point him away from his car and toward one of two reinstated taxi zones on the corner of Main Street and Sun Valley Road.

Last year, when the designated taxi loading zones disappeared from Main Street, so did the intoxicated bar-hopper’s easy-access ride home.

Or so said taxi owners at Monday night’s Ketchum City Council meeting, when they asked the city to replace the loading zones outside Ketchum’s more notorious bars.

"When intoxicated people come out of bars and don’t see a taxi, they’re going to get into cars," said Elaine Kearns, manager of Bald Mountain Taxi.

Moreover, said Scott Brashears of A-1 Taxi, having designated taxi zones is better business for the taxi companies.

"We need the zones for convenience. We don’t want to break the law and double park," he said. "And it’s a pretty important issue to us revenue-wise."

Last summer, as part of its city-wide pedestrian improvement efforts, the council eliminated taxi zones for two reasons, said city administrator Jim Jaquet.

First, he said, the four zones--two in front of the Roosevelt and two in front of Bick, Norris, Sampson, MacKenzie & Co. Real Estate office--were extremely difficult to enforce. Also, they needed a lot of conspicuous signs to keep potential parkers away.

Ketchum Police Chief Cal Nevland said the violators--meaning those who parked in the designated taxi zones after 6 p.m.--were mostly tourists.

"It was a nightmare for us in terms of enforcement," he said.

On Monday night, however, Nevland did propose a compromise, which the council ultimately accepted.

Two taxi zones--one outside the Roosevelt Tavern and another across the street in front of the Bick, Norris, Sampson, MacKenzie & Co. Real Estate offices--will be designated in the summer by painted grids on the pavement, and in the winter, by discreet signs.

These zones also will be restricted 24-hours a day for taxis only.

"We like to be in the zone," Brashears said.

But, Nevland admonished, taxi drivers now will have to make an effort not to take spots away from other cars.

In the past, he said, drivers have created problems by lingering in front of the entrances to bars.

"The person closest to the door of Whiskey’s is going to get the fare," he said.

Both Brashears and Kearns said their drivers would cooperate and only park in front of bars late at night, when there was relatively little parking otherwise.

A-1 driver Yon Severts, for one, was happy about the arrangement.

"Bar owners call us up and want to pay for us to haul someone off," he said. "I have park my car out back to walk into [the bar] and drag him out."