Surrey’s legal battle against Uber cost taxpayers nearly $42,000
Posted May 2, 2020 10:33 am.
Last Updated May 2, 2020 10:35 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS 1130) — Surrey’s brief legal battle against ride-hailing giant Uber cost taxpayers nearly $42,000.
A Freedom of Information Request obtained by NEWS 1130 shows the City paid $41,800 in legal fees earlier this year.
Surrey Councillor, Linda Annis, calls the spending an “absolute waste of money.”
“It’s shocking to me that we would spend this kind of money on something that we knew was going to be part of our right and transportation strategy.”
The long-awaited approval of popular ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft arrived in B.C. late January, and Annis says the city should have abided by what the provincial government decided.
“I would say most everybody in Surrey was in favour of rideshare and were welcoming it,” she tells NEWS1130.
The City and Uber faced off in court after the City was slapping Uber drivers with $500 fines for operating without a business license.
“We were having drivers come here with the full expectation that they were going to have a fare and then only to find out they’re going to get a ticket. That to me is just not on, it’s not the way to city bylaw officers should be directed to spend their time. It was just poor use of manpower and poor use of property tax funds,” Annis says.
In February, Justice Veronica Jackson ordered the City to stop ticketing Uber drivers, calling out the City for “attempting to ride to horses at once,” by requiring operators to have licences, but not issuing them.
