There’s a poop problem in the S.F. airport taxi lot. Cabbies say it’s not them
San Francisco International Airport officials have had it with cabbies using the taxi lot as a bathroom, reports the San Francisco Examiner.
Seth Morgan, a senior transportation planner at the airport, wrote an email Friday to taxi drivers noting “an increased rate of urination and defecation” at the rear of the taxi lot, where drivers await their turn in line to pick up passengers at the terminal, reported the publication.
“This creates a highly unsanitary condition and a health hazard,” Morgan wrote in the email obtained by the Examiner.
He warns drivers to use the designated bathrooms or face suspensions, fines or arrests as airport and city police step up enforcement in the taxi lot, the publication reported.
The warning outraged some taxi drivers.
“We don’t do that,” taxi driver Jeffrey Htung told KNTV.
“I look at the email and say there is no way anybody is doing that,” Kamaljit Singh told the station. “I’ve been driving here 26 years.”
“This is not worth smearing the entire taxi workforce,” Mark Gruberg, a spokesman for the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The vast majority of drivers are not doing this.”
Gruberg argued the problem could be a few isolated incidents or that cabbies may not be to blame at all, according to the publication.
“Maybe it could be dogs,” he told the Chronicle. “People bring dogs to the airport.”
But taxi drivers interviewed by KRON told the station they fear losing their place in line to pick up lucrative airport fares if they step out to go to a bathroom.
Others said they’ll do what they want where they want, reported the station.
Airport passengers found the entire dispute disgusting, KNTV reported.
“It’s ridiculous to think people are peeing and pooping out there when there are bathrooms everywhere and to the fact the airport had to issue a memo,” Tim Buskard of Livermore told the station.
San Francisco International Airport served a record 55.8 million passengers in 2017, according to an airport press release.
This story was originally published August 29, 2018 at 7:25 AM with the headline "There’s a poop problem in the S.F. airport taxi lot. Cabbies say it’s not them."