Throwing up in a Calgary cab could cost you more than your pride

You could lose more than your lunch if you throw up in a Calgary cab.

City council upped the fee for upchucking or soiling a taxi with any other bodily fluids from $100 to $250.

"One hundred dollars doesn't even cover the detail costs, and then the lost wages that one would incur,"Coun. George Chahalsaid Monday.

"So I think that was a good move by council. I just hope people don't soil or barf in cars."

• Puking taxi passengers will have to stomach new fine, city says

The $100 fee was first introduced in 2014 in the hopes of enticing more drivers to work the night shift, but even at that time the price was considered too low.

"I actually don't think the $100 is enough," Mayor Naheed Nenshi said three years ago.

"The explanation is that that's how much the cabbies think they can reasonably get out of a drunk passenger who's vomiting in their cab. I suppose that makes sense ... it's going to be tough but I think most people who throw up in the back of a cab are actually kind of embarrassed about it and want to do what's right, so we'll have to rely on people's good will for this."

The fee is not a bylaw fine, so it's up to the driver to get the passenger to pay.

However, under the Livery TransportBylaw,failure to pay a taxi fare or fine could net you a $1000 ticket.

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