§4792. Regulation by municipalities or other local governing authorities of private for hire vehicles, however propelled, providing passenger transportation services

A. The legislature hereby finds and declares the following:

(1) The orderly regulation of vehicular traffic on the streets and highways is essential to the welfare of the state and its people.

(2) Privately operated for hire vehicles providing passenger transportation service provide vital transportation links within the state. Such passenger transportation service operated in the municipalities and other local governmental jurisdictions enables the state to provide the benefits of privately operated demand-responsive passenger transportation services to its people and to persons who travel to this state for business or tourist purposes.

(3) The economic viability and stability of such privately operated passenger transportation service is consequently a matter of statewide importance.

(4) The policy of this state is to promote safe and reliable privately operated for hire vehicles providing passenger transportation service in order to provide the benefits of that service. In furtherance of this policy, the legislature recognizes and affirms that the regulation of such privately operated passenger transportation service is an essential governmental function.

(5) The policy of this state is to require that municipalities and other local governing authorities regulate privately operated for hire vehicles providing passenger transportation service and not to subject municipalities or municipal officers to liability under federal antitrust laws.

B. Every municipality or other local governing authority shall protect the public health, safety, and welfare by licensing, controlling, and regulating by ordinance or resolution each private passenger for hire vehicle, however propelled, providing transportation services operated within the jurisdiction of the municipality or other local governing authority. Every municipality or other local governing authority is empowered to regulate the following:

(1) Entry into the business of providing taxicab passenger transportation service, including taxicab service, within the jurisdiction of that municipality.

(2) Rates charged for the provision of such passenger transportation service.

(3) Establishment of safety and insurance requirements.

(4) Any other requirement adopted to ensure safe and reliable passenger transportation service even if it is anticompetitive in effect.

(5) Limited or exclusive access by such passenger transportation service, including taxicab service, to the municipality's or other local governing authority's airport.

(6) The establishment of safety and insurance requirements even if they reduce the number of such private passenger vehicles for hire that otherwise would operate within the jurisdiction of the municipality or other local governing authority.

C. Cognizance is hereby taken of provisions in home rule charters of various parishes and municipalities which permit the regulation of private passenger for hire vehicles providing transportation service operated on the boulevards, thoroughfares, avenues, and streets within the jurisdiction of such parishes and municipalities and in connection with same the provisions of this Section are hereby deemed, and shall be interpreted and construed to be retrospective.

D.(1) Any municipality or other local governing authority is authorized to carry out the provisions of this Section as acts of government on behalf of the state as sovereign and, to the extent the governing authority deems necessary or appropriate, is further authorized to displace competition and provide a monopoly public service.

(2) All immunity of the state of Louisiana from liability under antitrust law is hereby extended to any municipality or other local governing authority acting within the scope of authority contained in this Section and, when so acting, a municipality or other local governing authority shall be presumed to be acting in furtherance of state policy.

Acts 1984, No. 518, §1, eff. July 6, 1984.