It was one of those glittering entertainment industry evenings. A fleet of sleek stretch limousines fanned out around town, scooping up Cher, Bobby McFerrin, kitsch horror queen Elvira and others to fetch them to the 1988 MTV Video Music Awards show last September.
Reclining in the plush splendor of their chauffeur-driven coaches, the stars were unaware that the limousine company hired for the occasion was a renegade firm operating outside the law--although one of the celebrities did complain after arriving at Universal Amphitheatre that her driver had made sexual overtures.
The rich and famous, as well as the couple down the street, have been victimized by price-slashing "bandit" limousine companies. Legitimate operators say that the bandits are driving them out of business, and that state regulators are failing to control them.
Operating potentially unsafe vehicles without proper licenses and insurance, the renegades have been involved in hit-and-run accidents and prostitution. Some have offered "prom night specials" of drugs to high school students. Studies in Sacramento and Los Angeles have shown that more than half of the advertisers in the local Yellow Pages are "bandit" companies, often operating on a shoestring out of storefronts or private homes.
"It's tantamount to an unlicensed industry when statistics show over 50% in L.A. are unlicensed," said Sue Frauens, supervisor of the consumer protection branch of the Los Angeles city attorney's office, which has filed suits against three of the companies.
'Most Serious of All'
The state Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the industry, has found problems with renegade operators in Sacramento, Modesto, San Diego, Orange County and Palm Springs. But Los Angeles County, with its affluent neighborhoods in Beverly Hills and the San Fernando Valley, "is the most serious of all," said Larry McNeely, a PUC enforcement official.
State law requires limousine operators to have at least $750,000 in public liability insurance on each vehicle and to obtain an operating license from the PUC, which takes 1% of the gross revenues as a fee. Experts in the field say these bills can add up to more than $20,000 a year for the average "mom-and-pop" fleet of three limousines.
