Posted on 06/02/2007 3:56:19 PM PDT by milestogo
Muslim taxi drivers refusing customers with alcohol
MINNEAPOLIS: Some Muslim taxi drivers in Minnesota have drawn the ire of airport authorities for refusing to pick up customers carrying alcohol.
The cabbies, many of them Somali, have shut their doors to more than 5,200 customers who landed at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport since 2002.
Theyve also refused a number of customers in the city who want to bring a bottle of wine or liquor home with their groceries.
Most were able to get another taxi, but scores were left standing at the curb or unceremoniously dumped on city streets when the cabbies found out, mid-ride, that there was booze in their baggage.
With nearly 50,000 Somali immigrants, Minnesota is fast becoming a testing ground for such assimilation issues, including flare-ups involving Muslim store cashiers who dont want to scan pork at the check-out counter.
Steve Wareham, director of Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport, said the influx of Somalis since the 1990s, most of whom are Muslim, has led airport authorities into un-chartered territory. Its unique in that we havent found a problem like this in any other airport or city in the world, Wareham said. For years, drivers who refused customers at the airport simply lost their place in line.
The airport started trying to negotiate a better system two years ago as customer complaints kept mounting. About a year ago, a group of local imams issued a fatwa calling alcohol the mother of all evils and telling taxi drivers that it was not permissible for cabbies to transport customers with alcohol because it involves cooperating in sin.
While some Muslim drivers ignored the fatwa, others became more vigilant. A terminally ill woman and her father complained that about three cabbies turned them down after an imam spotted a box marked California wine amongst their luggage and alerted the drivers.
On May 11, the airport enacted tough penalties for cabbies, who refuse riders. A first offense lands a 30-day suspension of the drivers licence to operate at the airport. Subsequent offenses bring a two-year revocation. The decision was met with anger and threats of a legal challenge.
It really has messed up our lives completely, said Abdinoor Ahmed Dolal, a 32-year-old Kenyan immigrant and spokesman for many Muslim cabbies. People are furious about this, Dolal added.
Airport officials say drivers who dont want to transport alcohol should try another line of work and even held a job fair to help dissatisfied drivers find other jobs.
Nobody knows exactly how many drivers have refused to carry passengers with alcohol, but the number of complains are small. Less than one percent of the airports 2,000 daily rides are refused because of alcohol, officials said.
Even that tiny percentage is too much for Jack Lanners, chairman of the Metropolitan Airports Commission. He rejects claims that such accommodations should be made for taxi drivers religious beliefs. Its not an accommodation issue, its a service issue, Lanners told AFP. If your job is to take people from one point to another, i.e. in a taxi, then youd think youd be qualified, he added.
So far, nobody has violated the new ordinance, although a few cabbies refused to renew their six-month licences after being asked to sign affidavits saying they would pick up all customers.
We are not comfortable carrying alcohol but they force us, said Abdi Barir, a 24-year-old immigrant who operates an airport taxi. It really bothers me but I dont want to lose my job, Barir said. afp
This looks like a real business opportunity for some enterprising Christian.
That’s okay, because if I see somebody on the side of the road hitch-hiking that has Muslim dress, I won’t pick them up.
> We are not comfortable carrying alcohol but they force us, said Abdi Barir, a 24-year-old immigrant who operates an airport taxi. It really bothers me but I dont want to lose my job, Barir said. afp
The answer to this is obvious: if you don’t want to be inconvenienced like this, ask your cabbie if they are Muslim or Somali: if so, save them some time and embarrassment: decline the ride...
...oops! That’s “Prejudice”!
I can’t wait to see what happens when those cabs start using ethanol and butanol as fuel. :)
Piss on them. Invoke the ordinance sanctions.
Fleet vehicles would be the first to conform. I guess they walk?
Fleet vehicles would be the first to conform. I guess they walk?
50,000 Muslim Somali immigrants..
THANK YOU MR PRESIDENT!
They love you to death from what I hear...
Show em the booze after the ride and stiff em.
Passenger: Excuse me cabbie, I don’t have any booze on me but can you drive me to JFK and, by the way, all that padding is just my suicide belt.
Cabbie: no problem brother, will payment be by cash, charge or heavenly virgins.
Who in Minnesota had their eyes closed while 50,000 “immigrants” filed in the door?????
Aided and abbetted by liberal politicians and quisling propagandists, the effrontery and supposed indignity of these reprobates is not founded in any religious doctrine. It is founded in their desire to recreate America into a sick parody of their own home countries, or as it is in many cases, simply to achive "victimhood" ($$$).
Claiming that the "close proximity" to either alcohol or pork violates the tenets of their religion is nothing more than cleverly crafted subterfuge with the sole intent of striking it big in the litigation lottery."
If you can’t stand the sight of blood, then you just can’t be a surgeon. If the sight of blood is somehow against your religious beliefs, then you just can’t be a surgeon.
In this case, if they can’t be around alcohol, then they just can’t fulfill the job requirements, that’s all.
If you can’t stand the sight of the vagina, then you can’t be a gynecologist.
If you can’t stand heavy traffic, then you can’t be an over the road long haul truck driver.
There are just so many jobs where if you can’t tolerate the job environment, then that job can’t accomodate you.
Why is a cab driving job, in which you can’t discriminate, any different than other service jobs where you have to accomodate the general public?
Any cabbie who pulls a stunt like this should be unceremoniously dumped out of his job.
This experiment has failed.
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