Thoughts on Taxis, Tips and Scallops
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE PUBLISHER

At its October 1 meeting, the Board of Selectmen was scheduled to make a decision on the transfer of the A-1 Taxi licenses from John Grangrade to Lisa Fitzgerald. The Board had lost the appeal from its original decision to deny the transfer and had dutifully held a rehearing at a special meeting away from the light of the television cameras to which they pay such obeisance at their regular meetings.

Now it was decision time - on television - and, lo and behold, nothing happened. The decisionmaking was postponed for another two weeks. The apparent reason for the inaction was that most of the members of the Board were not prepared to make a decision because they were not sure what the parameters of that decision could be. Town Counsel was asked for his counsel and demurred. The Town Manager had nothing to say.

The applicant's counsel had made a trip to the island for the meeting and went away empty handed except for a half-hearted assurance from the chairman that when he returns on October 15, an effort will be made to put the item early on the agenda so the lawyer won't have to spend the night here.

That the Board and those designated to give them advice and support were unprepared to bring this matter to a conclusion is, in short, a disgrace. Worse than making them look foolish is that their inaction prolongs the matter unnecessarily and adds to the expense both for the applicant and the taxpayers.

A few months ago, when the Board approved the latest round of taxi fare hikes, the issue of installing meters in Nantucket's taxis was discussed once again and once again was tabled. However, at the time the chairman told the taxi owners that the issue of requiring taxi meters was still open and would be revisited if there were further complaints from the public. A letter in today's paper provides ample fodder to bring up the subject again. The uncertainty that a passenger has about fares without reading the fine print of the zone chart - which, if it is available, is not easy under any circumstance and impossible in the dark - is an unfair burden on the riding public and provides considerable opportunity for abuse. In addition, the present zone system is patently unfair to some riders.

For example ,on a taxi ride from town to Madaket, where does Madaket begin? At Caton Circle? At Crooked Lane? At the telephone towers? It is up to the driver and in most instances the passenger will acquiesce to what the driver says. We know Madaket can end anywhere from Fisher's Landing to the end of the Madaket Road and beyond, a difference of a couple of miles but passengers to both those destinations pay the same fare.

It is time for the regulating body, the Board of Selectmen, to make taxi meters mandatory. In fact, it is long overdue. A system of metered fares would best serve both the individual passenger and the island's reputation.

The same letter talks about how the staff of a local restaurant went out of its way to berate the writer and her friends for not leaving a tip, which the patrons felt was justified because they thought they had received very poor service. The wait staff reaction, as reported, was inexcusable. However, the real fault lies with the restaurant owner or manager in allowing such a thing to happen.

Tips are a very important part of the compensation of restaurant workers. (It has been related that the staff members of one establishment, who are paid the minimum permissible wage by the owner, receive over-all as much as $30 per hour as the result of the generosity of the patrons. That generosity does not result from poor service!) But as much as the workers might have the patrons believe otherwise, tips are discretionary and should reflect the level of service received. The wait staff should not be rewarded for bad service - although many are because the diner is afraid of the consequences of "under" tipping.

It is up to the restaurant management both to train the staff in what good service entails and to monitor its performance. Both poor service and ill-considered reactions to sub-normal tips reflect poorly on the establishment and, again, on Nantucket.

Another insidious habit related to tipping is developing. Once the check has been presented and the patron has placed a credit card or cash in the bill folio, the server approaches, perhaps not knowing what is inside and asks sweetly, "Do you need change?" The patron should get change unless he or she volunteers that it is not required. However, the server is relying on the fact that if the amount left is close to the total of the check plus the tip, the patron, who hasn't yet figured the tip percentage down to the penny will say "no" in response to the question of needing change and thus the tip might well end up being larger than it would otherwise be.

The concept of good service requires that the restaurant patron be given the change and not be confronted with making an off-the cuff mental calculation. In uncertain economic times particularly, the establishments that make it are the ones that provide value - and value includes good service.

If people leave Nantucket feeling that they have been ripped off or treated badly, it makes the task of attracting visitors that much more difficult. If that happens, it is no one's fault but ours. We can't control the external forces that impact our economy but we can and must deal with the issues that put at risk the Nantucket experience of our visitors.

It turns out we were right last week, unfortunately, about there being no scallops at Warren's Landing - or many other spots. The consensus is that there are a bunch of adult scallops out there but they are in water too deep to be reached with waders. Certainly those who have tried scalloping in the Second Bend area, which was closed last season to foster the growth of a million seed scallops, have found very few . Those scallops too may be in deeper water, or perhaps predators got many of them. For most people, family season is already a bust, although a few intrepid souls have gotten a bunch.

Time will tell whether the commercial season is successful but because of the amount of scallop seed that is present in the harbor, the predictions for next year are already rosy.

The entire situation demonstrates once again how little is known definitively about the patterns of scallop breeding and movement.

The "Lighthouse Keeper" reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Please send any ideas or comments to drake@ nantucketindependent.com. I