Car service, Lynbrook village to face off in court

Village Car Service, which in February won the right to park its taxis under the Lynbrook Long Island Rail Road station — a spot previously held by All Island Transportation — has filed suit against the village, claiming that new village regulations have made it virtually impossible for the company to do business there. The two sides will face off in Nassau County Supreme Court on Friday.

Seven months ago, Village Car Service, which has been licensed in Lynbrook since March 2011, was granted the right by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to park five taxis under the station. This was the first time in decades that the MTA has put the spaces up for bid, in an effort to increase revenue.

Less than a week after Village Car Service won the bid, the village passed a local law stipulating that a taxicab stand at the LIRR station must have an office and rest room available to cab drivers and passengers, that the office must be open 24 hours a day and that it must be within 500 feet of the taxicab parking spaces.

“This statute is designed to prevent Village Car Service from being able to use MTA property pursuant to the license agreement with the MTA,” said Adam Glassman, the attorney representing Village Car Service co-owner David O’Neill, “and this is why it appears to me to be outrageous in nature.”

The village attorney, Peter Ledwith, said the local law was put in place to ensure that those who use taxicabs had a place to go at all hours of the day that is in close proximity to the station. “The village adopted a law because it wanted to make sure that whoever was the taxi stand operator at the … station, that there would always be a lavatory available for 24 hours for people that come off the train, and also an office,” Ledwith said.

In August, O’Neill sent a letter to Village Clerk John Giordano stating that Village Car Service had secured a new office, at 416 Sunrise Highway, between Broadway and Atlantic Avenue, and was in compliance with the new code. Building Superintendent Brian Stanton and Chief of Police Joseph Neve measured the distance from the office’s front door to the parking spaces at the station, and said that it was 496 feet. O’Neill’s lease for the parking spaces begins on Oct. 1.