Mayor ‘appalled’ with
treatment of cab drivers

By Lori Tighe
Star-Bulletin

Taxicab drivers protesting Charley's Taxi met yesterday with Mayor Jeremy Harris to explain their plight and to ask for help.

"I received some phone calls about the situation and called them in to hear their side," Harris said. "I am quite frankly appalled at the treatment they have received."

But Harris said he wanted to meet with Charley's President Dale Evans to hear her story and offer his help to mediate. "I don't think anyone's benefiting from the current situation."

Two former Charley's drivers are on a hunger strike, and dozens more are picketing the company in front of Hilton Hawaiian Village, from which Charley's operates. The drivers say Charley's unfairly fired them because they complained about the rates drivers must pay, which are higher than other companies' rates.

The mayor asked the two men on hunger strikes to stop because they were hurting themselves. Ehsan Reza collapsed Wednesday, the third day of the hunger strike, and was treated and released from a hospital.

But drivers say they won't stop until the "injustices" are resolved.

Kimo Nagatori, Charley's supervisor of drivers and a driver himself, said the protest "is very upsetting."

"A lot of these drivers don't represent Charley's. It's embarrassing. . . . They squawk about paying for a plastic greeting sign."

Charley's charges its drivers the highest fees in the state because "we have the best stands," Nagatori said. "Hilton is supposed to be the top of the line."