New Taxi Service Wins Tentative OK : Transportation: The City Council votes to allow a second cab company to operate in the Valley. The action ends an eight-year monopoly.

In an acrimonious session, the Los Angeles City Council tentatively voted Wednesday to give a Burbank-based taxi firm a franchise to serve the San Fernando Valley, breaking an eight-year monopoly held by Valley Cab Co.

The unanimous vote culminates more than three years of lobbying efforts by Babaeian Transportation Co., which spent more than $100,000 on attorneys’ fees and focus groups aimed at winning the franchise and on campaign contributions to city officials.

After the vote, Babaeian owner Masood Babaeian said he would begin operating 22 cabs in the Valley starting in May and add 22 more every 45 days until he has 85 cabs on the road. Babaeian operates more than 100 cabs in Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena.

“It’s like a dream,” he said. “We’ve been working for three years and we are happy we are making it happen.”

Before the council’s vote, some in the audience expressed anger about the proposal.

Members of a senior citizens group who said they opposed the council’s decision tried to shout down Councilman Nate Holden when he suggested that senior citizens in the Valley supported adding a second taxi operation.

“Today, you have senior citizens saying they don’t want more transportation,” Holden told his colleagues on the council. “I’m confused.”

In the past, Babaeian employees bused senior citizens from the Valley to a council meeting and to a transportation committee meeting to speak in favor of adding a second taxi operation.

But most of the 50 senior citizens who filled the council chambers Wednesday said they opposed adding a second taxi franchise because the competition would force one or both of the companies out of business.

“We feel it would not be in the best interest of the seniors to have a second franchise in the Valley,” said Meyer Bernfield, president of the Federation Council of Seniors, a group that he said represents 300,000 senior citizens in Los Angeles. “We believe a second company in the Valley will kill all taxi service.”

A second and final vote of the council is expected within two weeks.

Valley Cab owner Lloyd Conway urged the council not to grant the franchise, saying there is not enough business in the Valley to support two taxi companies. He said the second franchise would hurt the two businesses and force drivers out of work.

Conway, who has a license to operate 96 cabs, said business is so slow that he only operates 50 taxis during the day and 35 at night.

“We have 200 drivers who will be out of work without them even having a say-so,” he told the council. “It’s ludicrous.”

Holden, chairman of the council’s subcommittee on transportation, supported Babaeian, saying a second taxi operation would provide competition and stimulate more business.

However, the competition between the two would not change taxi rates, which are regulated by the city.

City officials have said that they expect more taxi business this summer when the city begins to distribute discount taxi coupons to senior citizens and the physically disabled. The program should generate about 215,000 taxi trips a year--enough to support only about 20 additional cabs, according to a city Department of Transportation report.

The debate over whether to add a second taxi firm in the Valley has grown heated in recent months, with representatives of Babaeian and Valley Cab flinging accusations and counter-accusations.

Conway has accused Babaeian representatives of winning city support by making campaign contributions to key city officials. Babaeian employees and family members have donated a total of $14,000 to Holden since 1988, according to campaign records.

Babaeian General Manager Scott Schaffer has charged that Conway has become complacent with his exclusive franchise and has not adequately served Valley residents.

Several Valley Cab drivers at the meeting predicted that the bad blood between the two companies would continue.

“It’s going to be cutthroat business,” said Ed Atler, who has been a Valley Cab driver for 11 years.

Janet Kravetz, a Valley Cab driver for nine years, agreed. “The public is going to suffer because the two companies are going to fight for the fare.”

After the meeting, Schaffer accused Conway of shoving and cursing at him in the lobby outside the council chambers, an allegation that Conway denied. Conway said he asked Schaffer to stop spreading rumors about a former Valley Cab employee, but he said he never shoved Schaffer.

Babaeian’s cabs will include five vans equipped to carry disabled riders and another five “clean-air” vehicles that will burn natural gas. The cabs will be called Valley Checker Cabs and will be blue and white.