AN ORDINANCE related to the operation of open-air tour vehicles; creating a new Chapter 15.66 in the Seattle Municipal Code; and amending Sections 15.91.002 and 15.91.016 of the Seattle Municipal Code.
The report of the full council and Adam one council bill 118663. Related to the operation of open air tour vehicles, creating a new Chapter 15.66 in the Seattle Municipal Code and in many sections 15.90 1.002 and point zero 16 of Seattle Municipal Code. Councilmember Gonzalez. Thank you. Council President before us this afternoon is Council Bill 118663. It is a piece of legislation that went through the Gender Equity Safe Communities Annual Americans Committee, and its purpose was to provide some legal clarity and a law that would prevent open air tour vehicles from both providing narrating while driving from the same person. So we we've had a one meeting, two meetings to discuss the particular policy issues that were proposed in this Council bill. We have several amendments that we have made to the open air tour vehicles, legislation to narrow it in specific ways, to address the specific issues related to distracted driving and dangers related to tour vehicles and guiding us through those various policy amendments and changes will be Council Member Burgess, who I want to thank for his leadership on on crafting the specifics around the policy changes and putting forward amendments that we will be considering in a substitute bill. You are there. I'm sorry. Councilmember Burgess. Thank you. First, I had a question for the clerk. Do we have the correct ordinance on the agenda, or do I need to move the substitute? Okay. There's no need for. No, that's okay. Just a mirror. Okay. So this legislation, the correct version in front of us, modifies what was originally submitted to the council. It narrows the scope of application to open air vehicles. It limits the size of the vehicle to vehicles carrying 16 or more persons, including passenger and the driver or staff members. It broadens the legislation to cover any vehicle that's operating on city streets, whether or not the tour begins or ends in the city. It broadens the definition of the prohibited activities to include tours near narration or entertainment while driving and operating on city streets. It imposes either criminal or civil penalties, including the possibility of the issuance of citations, much like moving traffic citations. And then perhaps very significantly, it shifts the responsibility from the driver to the tour operating company that is penalized if there's a violation as opposed to the driver. Thank you. Councilman Burgess, are there any further comments about this legislation? I just if I could add to that in terms of input that we got from community, we we heard from many different folks who own tour tour vehicles. Many of the operators within the city of Seattle who already operate open air vehicles. Had no objection to this policy direction. They, in fact, are already in many ways following the high safety procedures by having one person do the narration and one person do the driving. And so we we I want to thank those folks who came to both of our public hearings to provide us with public testimony about how this particular piece of legislation, both in its original form and in its amended form, would help increase safety of those who who come into our city and and and buy tickets to go on to these tours. Well, I want to thank the two of you and your committee for grappling with this legislation. We know we want it to be inclusive of those small businesses or medium sized businesses that run these. But we've had some tragedies here which really warrants our legislators getting on top of these issues. So thank you for that process and for presenting this legislation at the. Any further comments from my colleagues here? Again, please call the roll on the passage of the bill. Thanks. John Burgess. Gonzalez Herbold Johnson. Suarez O'Brien. O'Brien Sewell. President Harrell I. 9 a.m. favorite unopposed. Bill passes and Cher was cited as an item number two. Please please read the report.