Data sought for proposed OC small vehicle rental ban

By Mallory Panuska Staff Writer

(March 3, 2023) A push to ban the rental of all small mobility devices in Ocean City is still in the works as officials await data to determine if an existing business owner needs to hand over his license to continue the practice.

At a work session Tuesday, City Council members agreed to collect incident data, including details on the types of devices and owners, for all small displacement vehicles for the 2023 season.

The info collected will allow council members to determine if the owner of Cycle City, the one business in town that presently rents scooters, mopeds and the like, can keep doing so if a rental ban goes into effect.

The decision came on the heels of a request Councilman Will Savage made in January to institute the ban in the name of safety and quality of life. Savage and other council members contended that small mobile vehicles, including electric scooters, scoot coupes, electric bicycles, mopeds, hoverboards and onewheels, are dangerous when driven by inexperienced drivers renting them on vacation and wreak havoc in residential neighborhoods.

Savage suggested banning the rental of them in city limits, and requiring any business owner with a rental license to quit the practice within three years of April 1.

While two businesses technically hold licenses to rent the vehicles, Cycle City is the only one currently doing it. In response to the potential ban, the owner asked for a compromise so he could continue to operate his summer business.

City Manager Terry McGean said Tuesday that he and several staff members, as well as Savage, Council-

BZA waives some required parking

Continued from Page 11 ager for the new hotelier, contended that the spaces will not be needed because of the restaurant’s location on the Boardwalk, where there will be a lot of pedestrians.

“With this project, one of the things I wanted to point out is it’s going to be a lot of Boardwalk traffic,” she said. “It’s not a destination, it’s not a chain.” woman Carol Proctor and Council President Matt James, met with the Cycle City owner, Elias Zacharopoulos, and his attorney and came up with a series of conditions to allow him to continue his rental business.

The next step for the project is approval of a site plan, which will be presented to the planning commission.

They included Zacharopoulos agreeing not to expand his inventory or number of licenses, restricting overnight rentals, maintaining a book of complaints and incidents, and limiting group sizes and ages.

McGean also presented data that showed there were 165 small displacement vehicle accidents recorded since 2018, 42 of which were confirmed rentals, with the status of the remainder unknown. Within the same time period, there were 96 collisions involving bicycles.

Based on recommendations from the meeting, council members agreed to freeze the issuance of new licenses or expand existing ones for the rental of small displacement vehicles, and not authorize e-bike or e-scooter rentals along with collecting data for the 2023 season.

While it may seem like the council’s vote puts a hold on passage of the working ordinance, officials pointed out that business owners would have had three years to stop renting the vehicles anyway based on the proposed language.

Savage added that he is not confident that the data will show small vehicle rentals are safe, but pointed out that the Cycle City owner would have the ability to continue his rental business for the next three summers regardless of the council’s action now.

There was also a recommendation to revisit the rental of e-bikes and escooters in the fall, but Councilman Tony DeLuca asked for that to be stricken. He pointed out that officials had already determined that those types of vehicles, which currently are not permitted to be rented, would not be considered for the compromise.

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With the Hyatt West site plan approval on Sept. 20, members of the resort’s planning commission included a condition that the developer find four parking spaces needed to meet their code requirements. Zoning Administrator Kay Gordy said last week that the developers are still working on finding the spaces.

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