Scooters irk San Francisco officials

SAN FRANCISCO — This city has long been a place where tech companies roll out their services first and seek permission later.

San Francisco officials, however, are losing patience with such strategies.

Members of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on Monday admonished Bird, LimeBike and Spin for blanketing the streets with electric scooters before the city’s transportation agency finished crafting rules to regulate their use and storage.

“When you enter the arena with that level of hubris and arrogance, you don’t create trust,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, a member of the board’s land use and transportation committee.

Legislators criticized the companies’ decision to launch knowing that regulation — including a permitting process — was on the way.

It was a familiar argument in a city where firms such as Uber, Lyft and Airbnb all became wildly popular by taking advantage of the fact that there were no laws explicitly regulating their practices in their early days.

Separately on Monday, San Francisco City Atty. Dennis Herrera sent cease-and-desist letters to the firms saying they ignored previous warnings and continue “to operate an unpermitted motorized scooter rental program” that is “creating a public nuisance on the city’s streets and sidewalks and endangering public health and safety.”