The Party May Be Over for These Tricycles Built for Seven

Is the party over for PartyBike? The owner of Peddle Pushers Limited, which runs a fleet of red, seven-seated giant tricycles often seen traversing Times Square, faces a bumpy ride after the Police Department impounded 14 of its 15 vehicles in the city.Donald Domite says his company is being singled out by police. “We follow the vehicle laws. We stop at lights. No one was ever injured,” said Mr. Domite, 52, of Sayville, L.I., whose company started about two and a half years ago.Three “conference bikes,” as the vehicles are called, sit idly next to the police station on West 35th Street, and another 11 are impounded in Brooklyn. The company currently has only one operating in the city.Riders pay $10 a person to traverse the neighborhood in roughly a six- or seven-block area – for example, traveling down Broadway, turning right on 42nd Street, and going up Eighth Avenue into Hell’s Kitchen. Other routes include Rockefeller Center and Central Park.Mr. Domite said police have been issuing “ECB tickets” – a reference to the city’s Environmental Control Board – which allow them to impound the vehicles for violating the city’s vending laws. Published reports have said that Mr. Domite’s PartyBikes were drawing complaints of noise on Eighth Avenue.Mr. Domite said the ECB violations fall under the charge of “vending without a license.” Previous summons of “disorderly conduct” have been dismissed in court, he said.Although PartyBike has received about 250 disorderly conduct tickets, Mr. Domite said, a bicycle is allowed anywhere in New York City unless there is a sign saying “No Bicycles.” When asked if his vehicles have impeded traffic, he said, “You cannot impede traffic if you’re part of it.”Each PartyBike, Mr. Domite said, costs about $11,000 to $15,000. The main driver, or captain, steers the vehicle and controls the brakes while up to six passengers help pedal. The vehicles are 8 feet long and 6 feet wide.The vehicles were at first well received, Mr. Domite said, until one of his drivers had a verbal dispute with a police officer in September 2004. Tickets and impoundment since followed, he said. Mr. Domite said the police have singled him out, arresting him for loitering six months ago in Times Square. He said he spent three days in jail but the city, he said, declined prosecution at the arraignment. In October, he filed a civil action against the police and is seeking a civil rights attorney.He says his PartyBikes are like tour buses and are a “unique business”in the city. Others in similar businesses expressed surprise at the police reaction. “Seizing his property is a serious thing,” the operator of Manhattan Rickshaw Co, Peter Meitzler, said. “There’s no current licensing category for pedal powered vehicles.”He cited the New York City administrative code, which defines a vendor as ” a person who sells or offers to sell goods or services at retail in a public space.” Vendors licenses are issued by the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs.He said a City Council committee met in February and is gathering information on how to regulate pedal powered vehicles to insure that the owners have liability insurance, driver training and safe equipment. But, Mr. Meitzler said, conference bikes are more an entertainment business than pedicabs, in which customers sit behind a driver who pedals in front. With conference bikes, riders sit in a circle and can have, well, a conference on wheels.In response to questions about Mr. Domite’s PartyBikes, an NYPD public information officer, Michael Collins, said the police only enforce the rules, while the Department of Consumer Affairs makes the rules and has a “big hand in that issue.”Other longtime bicyclers were lukewarm as to conference bikes, relegating them to the category of tourist activity. An employee of Pedal Pusher Bicycle Shop, located in Manhattan, who gave her name as Erica R, said conference bikes were among the silly things tourists do in Times Square.The deputy director of advocacy for Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit that promotes and encourages biking and walking, Noah Budnick, said, “They’re intended purpose is not transportation. Their intended purpose is tourist rides.” He added, “On a street that is closed to traffic with little pedestrian volume, they might be appropriate.” A competitor of PartyBike is Superbike, which operates four vehicles and is owned by James Muessig. Mr. Muessig said his vehicles have never been seized and have received only five tickets in the last seven months. He said the police have been courteous and respectful. “No one would be making any money in Times Square if it weren’t for the NYPD” keeping everyone safe, Mr. Muessig said.He said the police are involved in maintaining open lanes for emergency vehicles and keeping sight lines open. In short, he said, “When the police tell you to do something, you do it.”

The Party May Be Over for These Tricycles Built for Seven

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