Toby Mitchell learned in early September that she had been deactivated as an Uber driver due to traffic violations.
She arrived at Uber's office in Chicago the next day before they opened, hoping to be first in line. But, other drivers were there for the same reason.
"Most of us had paid the tickets and gotten shut off anyway," Mitchell said. "I went there to show proof that I had paid."
She was placed on a payment plan twice – one for $53 a month and the second for $133 a month.
"They found some other ticket that wasn't on the first payment plan, so I had to run down to the city of Chicago and pay that bill in order to get put back on the platform," she said.
Mitchell missed out on $700 in total while she waited a week for her account to be restored.
"I don't have a problem with the payment plan, because I did create the tickets," she said. "The only problem I have with it is the system. They don't give you credit right away when you did go down there and pay. So, I got shut down for a whole week unnecessarily."
Mitchell is among 21,000 drivers that the city of Chicago asked the state to suspend – triple the number from 2010 – officials in the city's finance department told ProPublica.
Cook County maintains a city code that gives Chicago the right to revoke an individual's business license if they do not pay or are unable to pay issued tickets. Sec. 54-391 of the Cook County Code of Ordinances states that the license of any person who has failed to pay any fine, assessment of costs, or other sums of money owed to the county pursuant to an order of the Department of Revenue, an order of the Department of Administrative Hearings, or court order by the due date indicated in the order or within 30 calendar days of becoming a debt due and owing can be suspended by the Department of Revenue, in accordance with its rules and after affording a hearing. The license shall be suspended until such time that the fine, assessment of costs, or other sums of money is fully paid.
"They didn't really think out everything when they set this up and when they were preparing for it," Mitchell told Southland Marquee. "I thought I had taken care of everything already. So, I'm driving, and then I just got shut off."
Some residents view the city's ticketing system as aggressive. The system includes hundreds of cameras across the city, which generate tens of millions of dollars a year, according to Block Club Chicago. The news organization also found that cameras bring a high cost for motorists – particularly, from the city's Black and Latino neighborhoods. For example, a ProPublica analysis determined from millions of citations that between 2015 and 2019, households in ZIP codes with a majority of Black and Hispanic residents received tickets at nearly twice the rate of those in white communities.
Chicago is the only major U.S. city with a program that deactivates gig workers, primarily ride-hail drivers, for their unpaid ticket debts, NPR reported. The city's policy required Uber and Lyft to suspend more than 15,500 people in 2019. Chicago's ride-hail suspensions hit the city's majority Black and low-income neighborhoods the hardest, according to a 2019 WBEZ analysis of data obtained through public records.
The Cook County Code allows a department or agency to deny renewal, suspend, or revoke a general business license. A notice is sent to the applicant and a copy is sent to the Department of Revenue. The notice is prima facie, meaning the document itself is legally sufficient to deny issuance, deny renewal, or suspend a business license. A license can only be suspended, denied, or revoked after a proper license administration hearing is held and after the applicant is given seven days' notice. The director of revenue can grant one continuance after a show of good cause.
Chicago drivers have two options if their license is suspended because of outstanding debt from parking tickets, according to the city of Chicago website: 1. Pay all the parking ticket violations and fines in full (payment must be made to the city of Chicago Department of Finance) or 2. challenge the license suspension by filing an appeal with the secretary of state within 21 days of notice of suspension.
"You go in, they pick up all your tickets, tally them up, and then give you your payment plan on the Fresh Start program," Mitchell said. "I did that, but they found other tickets that weren't on that original program. That's why I got two different payments."
Special note from the Southland Marquee: This story is part of a collection highlighting how Cook County and City of Chicago policy affect freelancers, small business owners, and ride-share drivers.