It happened to me. First Hand! Time for M.A.C. to stop allowing this discrimination against MY religious beliefs!

Submitted by Michelle Tanner (United States), Oct 12, 2006 at 14:31

When I tried to get a response from M.A.C. a few years back about this issue, the blew me off. It's nice to see it's getting national attention.

At 12:30am on a cold Jan night a couple years back, I was returning home from the Grand Cayman with my husband. I also had with me 3 bottles of alcohol in a plain white box. As we approached the taxi station, there were 10 cabs waiting for fares. 8 drove off when they saw the box. We felt like criminals and we did NOTHING wrong. We were sober and cold and we were refused rides.

For those of you who are not familiar with MSP airport, you are directed to this area to take a cab if needed out of the airport. This is the only way you can take a cab out of the airport short of hiring a private town car to pick up, with the added cost.

Finally one muslim driver said he would take us. We got in, felt uneasy, and started traveling to our destination. Driving down the highway the driver began to slump over. We were scared and unknowing what was happening and thought he was reaching for a weapon. Then we realized he had fallen asleep while driving down the highway.

This is unacceptable. Why should we be discriminated against by them because we don't have the same religious beliefs?

Isn't discriminating against religion against the law? Why do they get away with it? Why does M.A.C. allow this discrimination to happen? Why is MSP airport the only airport with this problem? Why is M.A.C. not enforcing their own ordinances?

As stated in the Metropolitan Airport Commission Ordinance #81 (regulating the operation of taxi cabs at the MSP International Airport) Section 7.6 regarding discrimination, "NO TAXICAB DRIVER SHALL DISCRIMINATE AGAINST ANY PERSON BASED ON RACE, COLOR, CREED, RELIGION..." Yet they are allowing it to happen, time and time again.

-Michelle Tanner, Minneapolis Minnesota

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