By Leisa Zigman
St. Louis, MO (KSDK) - Pedaling St. Louis BarCycle has won the right to drink, pedal and party through the streets of Soulard.
The mobile pub was shut down for most of the summer but is now back in business, leaving some Soulard residents furious.
BarCycle is a 16 passenger bicycle where you pedal from bar to bar. Dan Lloyd brought the concept to St. Louis a year ago, but was shut down while city officials figured out whether to issue him a license to operate.
"Passengers bring their own drinks while a driver from his business, steers the mobile pub from bar to bar," Lloyd said.
Meanwhile, some Soulard residents like Karen Landon started a neighborhood petition to banish what she calls a "pedal powered booze cruise" that has stopped at her front door.
"It advocates drinking and over-consumption. The problem is noise and the problem is liability to me. I had a woman fall off of it and fall into my car," Landon said.
The decision to license eventually fell on the Metropolitan Taxi Commission. But Missouri state law indicates the MTC can't regulate anything that isn't motorized or carries more than eight passengers.
But if the taxi commission doesn't have jurisdiction over non motorized vehicles, how is it able to regulate the horse and carriage rides downtown? It turns out the carriage rides were grandfathered in under a city ordinance in 2004. However, there is no code or regulation for something like BarCycle.
"Where is the control? There is no regulation. I don't feel safe about it," Landon said.
Landon said patrons are peddling at their own risk. And she hopes her alderman will file legislation to regulate BarCycle.
In the meantime, Lloyd said he has $2 million worth of insurance coverage. He's also sympathetic to the concerns of some neighbors, that's why he stops operating at 10 p.m. during the week and at 10:30 p.m. on weekends. He also pointed out that he has the support of business owners and the Soulard Restoration Group.
KSDK