Conscience & Airport Taxis, Revisited

A few weeks ago, Rob posted a story about Muslim cab drivers at the MInneapolis airport refusing to take passengers carrying liquor, citing Islamic prohibitions against alcohol.  The cab drivers were upset because they were being forced to go to the back of the cab line when they refused such a fare. The story noted that the airport officials were trying to work out arrangement under which drivers wanting to refuse passengers carrying liquor could signal that preference with a unique color of light on their cabs; airport officials could steer passengers carrying alcohol to appropriate cabs, rather than forcing a cabbie exercising his conscience to the back of the line.  Rob characterized this effort by the airport officials as "encouraging."

Today's paper reports that the officials have given up trying to work out that arrangement. 

But the [Metropolitan Airports Commission] said the public response was overwhelmingly negative, and some taxi companies feared that people opposed to the system would switch to other forms of ground transport instead of cabs.

Also, the MAC noted, back in May when discussions began, cabbies were refusing customers with alcohol an average of 77 times per month. But since then, the government has imposed new security rules that prohibit travelers from taking most liquids through security checkpoints.

That's led to a sharp drop in travelers carrying alcohol, so fewer are being refused service by taxi drivers.

So, Rob, did the market triumph here in the end?

And wouldn't there be some limits to the airport officials' ability to allow the market to sort this all out, in any event, because cabs are a form of public accommodation?  The following is a true story from a friend of mine.  Does bringing gender into the equation the way this cabbie did cross some line?  Or would you be in favor of a cab-signalling system with a rainbow of colors, such as:  green:  everyone's accepted; red:  no liquor-carrying passengers;  yellow:  no liquor-carrying women;  purple:  no women with exposed flesh?

I was returning from Italy with 3 children and my husband.  Flights were somewhat delayed, and we arrived at the cab line very late at night after going through customs.  There weren't a lot of cabs but there were, as is common when a big international flight arrives, many people in the cab line.  We had to wait an extra amount of time because we had 5 passengers and a lot of luggage and required a van.  Finally got one.  The driver loaded the luggage into the back, passengers piled in, then he said to my husband, pointing to me "not her."  He said what do you mean not her.  "Liquids."  As was obvious to anyone looking at us from the outset, I was carrying a wine-pack from the duty-free (a present for a friend who'd lent us some luggage, not that that matters, but the wine wasn't in a duty-free bag, it was in a duty-free box with the tops of the bottles visible.)  He argued with the taxi-control lady when she agreed that he couldn't take my children and husband but leave me standing there by myself!  He was yelling that it would require him to go to the back of the queue.  Obviously feeling that HE was being wronged by being denied the chance to make money by transporting my family away, he threw the luggage onto the pavement and huffed away.  When we finally did get a cab home I explained to my horrified children why what they had just witnessed was wrong legally as well as according to common sense.  In America we can welcome people of all faiths and cultures and we don't have to be all worried if "our" people don't have equal representation in every single walk of life.  There are rules concerning public accommodation and they protect all of us; normally you don't have to feel nervous if a group (like the Somalis in this case) effectively takes over a profession (cab driving in this case) because the law says you can still get a ride home. 

Lisa