After three days on the streets of Redondo Beach, the Bird scooters that arrived unannounced late Thursday to the dismay of city officials have quickly disappeared.
Mayor Bill Brand issued a terse warning to company representatives on Saturday, Dec. 8, stating that if the 300 or so scooters that were scattered near the waterfront were not removed by Monday at 9 a.m. the City Council would take action.
By Monday morning, a review of the Bird app proved that nearly all scooters within the city had been removed. Rather than call for an emergency meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 11, Brand said the issue will be addressed at the regular council meeting on Tuesday Dec. 18.
At issue is that Bird did not receive a business license or permission from city officials for a pilot program.
“We’ve met with them (Bird) privately and conducted two public meetings, yet they chose to ignore our wait and see approach and acted on their own with no notice,” Brand wrote on Facebook. “Not good corporate citizens.”
Bird spokeswoman Rachel Bankston said on Monday the company looks forward to working with city officials.
“We believe Redondo Beach shares Bird’s vision of building communities with less traffic and reduced carbon emissions,” Bankston wrote in an email. “We have voluntarily paused our service in the city and look forward to working with community officials to create a framework that works for everyone so that our affordable and accessible service can return to the people of Redondo Beach soon.”
In November, the Redondo Beach City Council put off a decision until at least March on whether to partner with Bird, Lime or another company on a pilot program. Bird, at least, couldn’t wait.
The guerrilla marketing strategy of doing business without a city permit or license and then negotiating with city officials later is a strategy that Bird has deployed relatively successfully in other cities. In Santa Monica and Los Angeles, city officials eventually agreed to a pilot.
In El Segundo, where scooters showed up unannounced in September, city officials did put the breaks on a pilot program when they could not reach agreement with the companies on liability insurance.
In Santa Ana, it was a similar story recently.
When it looked like the electric scooters were making their way into the beach cities earlier this year, city council’s in Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach each issued moratoriums on the dock-less electric rentals. But Redondo Beach passed no such ordinance.
The proliferation of Bird scooters in Redondo over the weekend sparked outcry on social media, mostly negative, from people who viewed them as an eyesore, said they blocked the sidewalk and worried about safety.
In his message to Redondo Beach city officials Friday, Dec. 7, Tim Harter, Bird senior government relations manager, said the company can be a partner for governments as they tackle climate change and transportation needs.
“If we’re successful, together we can make cities more livable for everyone. In fact, over the past year, dozens of cities have said that Bird has improved their community and recommend us as a great government partner,” Harter wrote.
