Bye Bye, BIRDie: Beverly Hills Bans Electric Scooters For 6 Months, Pending Regulation
BEVERLY HILLS (CBSLA) — The Beverly Hills City Council Tuesday night had harsh words for electric scooter companies it said brought them into the city without permission.
In a 4-1 vote, the council banned the scooters for six months.
"The ordinance prohibits the devices from being placed in any public right-of-way or on public property, operated in any public-right-of-way or on public property, or offered for
use anywhere in the City," the city wrote in a statement on its website. "The majority of the Council cited concern for public safety and a lack of any advanced planning and outreach by the motorized scooter companies as the primary reasons for the new ordinance."
At the end of of the six months, the council hopes to have regulations on the devices some said are a danger to riders and pedestrians.
"Forgiveness is really not appropriate because what they did was really disgusting," Mayor Julian Gold said Tuesday of electric scooter companies like BIRD and Lime. "They put everybody in this room at risk, and they put your kids at risk, and there's no responsibility for it, at all."
"If you imagine just walking on the sidewalk and somebody on a scooter at 15 miles an hour hits you, it can be fatal," echoed council member Lili Bosse.
They're concerned about the ubiquity of the scooters since companies "dumped" them on the city without input from lawmakers. Beverly Hills Police recently posted of photo of a woman getting a citation on a scooter. They've cited or warned 150 riders for violations that include riding without a helmet, on the sidewalk and without a license.
Still, some told the council the scooters are here to stay, with or without their approval.
These scooter are gonna still enter, they still will enter Beverly Hills," said one man. "It's going to be a burden against the police to enforce the ban at the level that you're looking for."
Companies will be fined $172 for every scooter the city has to recover from the street.
