Las Vegas NowCabbie Kickbacks: Tipping or Extortion?

Cabbie Kickbacks: Tipping or Extortion?

Cabbie Kickbacks Corruption - Part 2

State and local officials are planning a summit to figure out what, if anything, to do about the issue of so-called cabbie kickbacks. The owners of Las Vegas strip clubs say taxi drivers are extorting money from them, threatening to shut them down if they don't pay.

Las Vegas strip clubs rake in so many millions of dollars a year that it's tough to get too choked up about them paying gratuities to hard-working cab drivers. But there is another way to look at it. The nightclubs estimate that they forked over $20 million to drivers last year but say they had no choice. It was either pay up or get shut down.

It's not a simple issue, certainly not as simple as it has been portrayed.

Driving to and from work is bad enough. Imagine if driving was your work, coping with congestion, heat, and assorted maniacs. Cab drivers learn to expect the worst.

Taxi driver Mike Doctor said, "Several of us have been killed and robbed. It's a dangerous job, 25-percent more dangerous than a police officer. We're risking our necks just to make a living."

Taxi driver Jonathan Roth said, "It's three times more dangerous than a police officer. Why shouldn't we be compensated well for it?"

Veteran cabbies say they make less today than they did years ago, in part because company owners now keep a bigger piece of the meter and because of competition from limos and shuttle buses.

Drivers keep their tips but, as another taxi driver said, "Tips used to be 50-percent of my pay -- used to be. Now the riding public doesn't tip like they used to."

But there are perks. Local businesses shower freebies on drivers because drivers can send a lot of business their way by word of mouth. In Trip Sheet magazine, you see the ads for free meals, free shows, free drinks, special drawings -- and best of all -- cold cash.

Massage parlors pay $20 per customer delivered. Some sex clubs pay up to $60. But the bread and butter for drivers are the adult nightclubs, which hand out bounties of up to $50 per passenger. One load of four passengers could mean a quick $200 to a driver. Both the city and the county say it's illegal for businesses to do this, but it's done, every night, right out in the open. It adds up.

Brent Jordan, a former Cheetahs employee, said, "That's $18,000 being paid into the door then back out to the cab drivers. That was typical for an average Friday night at Cheetahs."

Jordan is no defender of the strip clubs. He wrote a scathing book based on his 12 years as a bouncer and doorman at Cheetahs, but he's the only person associated with the business willing to talk publicly about cab drivers. "This is strong-arm robbery. This is mob stuff these cab drivers are doing."

At one point, the clubs may have had a choice whether to pay a bounty or kickback, but not any more. Jordan says it's a matter of survival. If a club tries to stop paying, or even tries to pay less, cab drivers can and do put out the word. Jordan saw it first hand in a dispute over $20.

Jordan said, "He got on his radio and said Cheetahs is not cab driver friendly, and for 4 hours on a Friday night, we did not get one taxi driver on Western Avenue. It's extortion. If the clubs stopped this today, they would get zero business. If one club did stop paying, it's over."

The adult clubs have tried to present a united front, but one club or another always breaks ranks and then they all start paying again. They've even gone to court to demand the enforcement of the anti-kickback laws, to no avail. When they quietly lobbied the state legislature to slip in an amendment that would have banned payments to drivers by all businesses, cabbies were angered.

After a fiery rally, drivers threatened to stop serving the airport. They then staged a slowdown on the Las Vegas Strip itself. They vowed to all but shut the town down unless the money continues to flow.

Craig Harris with Trip Sheet magazine said, "We're doing this not only for us, but we don't want it to happen to anyone else. This is wrong. Flat out wrong."

Harris not only drives a cab but also is the managing editor of Trip Sheet magazine. He thinks the strip clubs have only themselves to blame for the bounty situation, although he admits drivers have the power to shut a club down if it doesn't pay. If drivers tell a business to pay up or else, isn't that extortion?

Harris comments, "I resist that word because it's a criminal activity. The majority of drivers don't do that."

Harris says most drivers earn very little from the kickbacks and that they don't extort anyone. Yet hundreds turned out to protest a possible end to the payments and they ended up threatening Las Vegas itself.

"There it is -- extortion. They proved it by saying we will shut down the Strip. They threatened to shut down the airport. Think about that," Harris emphasized.

Drivers say what really irks them about plans to cut off their tokes is that limo drivers and bus drivers would not be affected and could still rake in the money. The drivers also say they are the victims of extortion themselves at the hands of hotel doormen.

Contact I-Team Investigative Reporter George Knapp