Charity Guy Drives Cancer Patients for Free, NYC Taxi Commission Tries to Seize His Car

NYCArthur / photo on flickr

The New York Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) seems to be set on demonstrating the old saw that no good deed goes unpunished.

On Monday, TLC officers impounded the car of 25-year-old Yeshaya Liebowitz and issued him a $2,000 citation, the Daily News reports. His crime: offering free rides to cancer patients as part of his work with the Jewish charity Chesed. 

"I tried to explain to him we're not a car service," Yeshaya Liebowitz, 25, said of the Monday misadventure in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

The TLC officer wasn't interested and instead made off with the car, leaving the two sick, elderly passengers stranded on the side of the road and Liebowitz holding the hefty citation.

The New York Daily News has been reporting on a recent push by the Taxi & Limousine Commission to crackdown on gypsy cabs—unlicensed drivers who pick up passenger or help out neighbors, friends, or relatives when they need a lift in exchange for some cash. 

Gypsy cabs, of course, are the original ridesharing technology. Lyft without the pink mustache, Uber without the app. Ridesharing makes taxi commissions awfully nervous. And when powerful monopolists get nervous, they tend to get mean.

This incident has a "happy" ending. A local politician intervened and the summons was dismissed. But those charity workers had better be careful. Challenging urban taxi commissions can be a dangerous move, just ask Reason's own Jim Epstein who was arrested for trying to film a meeting of the D.C. Taxi Commission.

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Comments

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I *told* you we can't leave charity up to the private sector!

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Give me some of that TLC

[Hugh Akston]

If the NYCTLC lets this kind of thing continue, what's to stop people from intentionally contracting cancer just to avoid cab fares?

[LynchPin1477]

Or charity workers giving people cancer!

[Fr?ulein Nikki]

That's what the insane cigarette taxes are for.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"leaving the two sick, elderly passengers stranded on the side of the road"

I warned you Baggers that if you kept voting for limited-government candidates, you'd see cancer patients stranded on the roadside!

[Hugh Akston]

Dude, switch to decaf.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I was searching for the perfect joke.

[sarcasmic]

...unlicensed drivers who pick up passenger or help out neighbors, friends, or relatives when they need a life in exchange for some cash.

[sarcasmic]

You're welcome.

[mad libertarian guy]

How are we supposed to rely on government cheese if people are willingly doling charity sans force?

[JD the elder]

But the leftists keep telling me that libertarians are evil because they think charity should be a private matter, and government is good because only government can effectively address healthcare issues! How did this happen? Must have been evil libertarians secretly infiltrating the NYC TLC.

[R C Dean]

Just to pound this one more time:

"leaving the two sick, elderly passengers stranded on the side of the road"

Subhuman, soulless goons. When the revolution comes, pulling the trigger at the barricades won't be as hard as I thought it would be.

[croaker]

Barricades? I'll make the entire TLC kneel in the street in front of their former office and put a cap in the back of their heads until I run out of ammunition.

[soflarider]

Please allow me to buy you more ammo at that point.

[Vampire]

Fuck them. I hope the NYC TLC fucks with the wrong terminal cancer patient that decided to say fuck it, arm themselves and defend their liberty.

[HazelMeade]

Nobody gave a shit about gypsy cabs until someone made an app for it.

I don't think anyone would have seriously thought it was illegal to give your neighbor a ride in exchange for money 10-15 years ago.

What happened is that someone made an app and it got big enough to threaten the cab companies so now they are cracking down on everyone.

[datcv]

"This incident has a "happy" ending. A local politician intervened and the summons was dismissed."

I would love to know who the local politician was and what his ties to the taxi commission are. I doubt they did this out of kindness, but more as a way to stifle the bad publicity. They probably realized the TLC had gone too far.

[Cap'n Krunch]

Dig deep enough and you'll find organized crime is behind this, using liberals as the tools to manipulate government so that they have a stranglehold on yet another industry.

[LolaWright]

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