Commentary: Igniting A Movement

Editor’s Note: EQ Magazine is a new publication dedicated to coverage of entrepreneurship and the startup scene in St. Louis. This commentary in the premier issue by Chris Sommer,  founder of Pi and Gringo restaurants and two tech startups, addresses the resistance of local leadership to change. Sommers makes a case that the brouhaha over Uber is symptomatic of our poor record in addressing the need for mass transit, density and startup investment in order to attract and retain millennials.

by Chris Sommers

In EQ Magazine: What’s in a list? In my industry, not much. We love to see our brands atop them, but we also take them with a grain of salt. Too often, the national restaurant critics haven’t even stepped foot in St. Louis, let alone our establishments, when they include us on their best pizza, best food trucks, cocktail or whatever list du jour they concoct. Still, we publicize the hell out of them and thank these unknown reporters profusely. After all, it’s laudatory free press, and most importantly, it’s something to talk about.

In St. Louis and Missouri, it seems, we are obsessed with lists, too. Unfortunately, however, we reside on the top of lists we loathe and sit in last place on those to which we aspire. Whether it’s #1 in murder and crime rate, or STDs, or lowest in gas and cigarette taxes or school funding, we excel where we shouldn’t, and languish where we should lead.

In January 2014, I brought the idea of getting Uber and Lyft in St. Louis to Mayor Slay. I’d used their services in other cities where I travel and own businesses, and believed St. Louis needed the same safe, affordable alternative to our abysmal taxi service and insufficient mass transit. Mayor Slay and his Chief of Staff quickly realized the importance of this too, and appointed me to the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission, an entity created by the Missouri legislature to oversee taxicabs and other vehicles-for-hire, because our fragmented region lacks any governmental entity to oversee both St. Louis City and County.

At the time, St. Louis wasn’t the last city in the country without Uber and Lyft (now referred to as Transportation Network Companies or TNCs), but we were close. Say what you will of these companies’ tactics when they launch in a new city, but St. Louis continues to put up a hell of a fight. If Uber legally operates in Las Vegas, and to this day, operates illegally in St. Louis, we have a problem. (Las Vegas is known for its incredibly corrupt taxicab cartel.) I knew convincing my fellow commissioners to get on board with TNCs would be an up-hill battle, but I didn’t realize how sad and ugly it would get. I never imagined that the Chairman of the Commission would call me an “insufferable douche” on Twitter for my support of TNCs. That jab backfired and helped rally hundreds for our cause.

Read more.