The Long Beach Cyclists World Headquarters received this email today:
To all Fire Station personnel:
The City Council recently approved numerous fee increases. Effective immediately the new fee for Bicycle Licenses (both original registration and renewals) is $3. Please begin charging the new rate immediately.
Please post this attachment where the public can see it and remove any old signs which refer to the previous $2 fee.
For more information, the following image was sent with the email:
When I was 14 and working on my Cycling merit badge, one of the requirements was that the bicycle meet all legal requirements. Being in Boy Scout Troop 212 of Long Beach, that meant getting my bike licensed. I remember the Saturday morning that my father gave me a dollar and sent me down to the local fire station to get my license. I paid my dollar, filled out a form and signed a yellow piece of paper. I was legal. The end.
Since then I can count no-less-than 23 bicycles that I have had licensed. I currently have 4 bicycles, all of which are licensed pursuant LBMC 10.50.020 – within the past 2 years.
Or so I thought.
I’ve made some calls recently trying to get to the bottom of this bicycle license program. Major cities across the country are disbanding their programs, and I have personally witnessed the racial/class profiling that Long Beach’s license program is used for. I can’t get any straight answers as to what the real purpose of the program is supposed to be.
Myth #1 – for cyclists to pay their way.
The form is filled out and at some point sent to headquarters, who then sends it to the Police Department, who are then supposed to enter the information in to a database for State and local agencies to access. Not until the final step would a theft be noticed – and then it is up to a detective to take up the case and track down the bike and individual.
When I spoke to Dorothy Nulk at the Long Beach Police Department – Child Protective Services (the department within the PD that handles bike licensing administration), I had to talk her through the process of getting a bicycle licensed. She said that she had access to the database and offered to run my name. Sounds fun, lets do it.
No record found.
How can that be? I have four bikes that are current, and they don’t pop up. Not only are the bikes missing, but so is any record of my name. Not one bike I have ever licensed has gotten in to the database. I have my yellow copies of the 4-sheet carbon transfer registration slip – I have them laminated – they don’t expire until December 31, 2009 – they don’t exist in the system.
California Vehicle Code 39005.
Cities and counties having a bicycle licensing ordinance or resolution shall maintain records of each bicycle registered. Such records shall include, but not be limited to, the license number, the serial number of the bicycle, the make and type, of the bicycle, and the name and address of the licensee.
Records shall be maintained by the licensing agency during the period of validity of the license or until notification that the bicycle is no longer to be operated.
Amended Ch. 947, Stats. 1973. Effective January 1, 1974.
Long Beach does not HAVE TO require bikes to be licensed, but since they do, the State requires them to keep a record of the above mentioned information. In my case, the City is not keeping up its end of the bargain. Can I write the City a ticket?
Thanks to Dr. Brent Hugh at StLRBF for tax data.
LA StreetsBlog reports:
In a report to the City Council, Chief William Bratton of the LAPD recommends to the City Council the discontinuation of the wildly unpopular bicycle licensing programming and announces that the LAPD will no longer enforce bicycle licensing unless the Los Angeles City Council.
Check out the full article.
Read the Report.
StreetsBlog is a buzz and LA city cyclists are claiming a huge victory.
Is Long Beach going to take the hint?
From a recent edition of LAWeekly:
Until recently, Los Angeles Municipal Code 26.01 was little known. But then in August, the police department began to enforce its central tenet: All cyclists shall ride licensed bicycles; those who do not will be cited and fined. Upon learning of the LAPD’s acceleratedenforcement, the city’s cyclists flooded bike blogs with outrage, saying that the code was “ridiculous,” designed “ultimately to prevent bikes in our car-obsessed city … for harassing cyclists.”
Read the full article
What are your thoughts on bicycle licenses?
Did you even know they were required in Long Beach?
Yes.
“Why?”
Because it’s the law…other than that, I can’t give you a good reason.
To obtain a bicycle license you must make it to a Fire Station on the weekends between 9am-Noon, and hope that there isn’t a fire somewhere or that somebody isn’t having a panic attack and the trucks roll out! I’ve been hearing that the Police are “cracking down” on bike licenses lately, and issuing tickets to those “offenders” that don’t have one. Who knew you needed to license a bike?
(A bicycle is defined as “any device upon which a person may ride which is propelled in whole or in part by human power through a system of belts, chains, or gears and which has either two or three wheels.”)
So that means you don’t need to get your roller skates, skateboard, Segway or unicycle licensed, but gosh darn it…you better license that bike!
What if I can’t make it to the Fire Station between 9am-Noon on the weekend? I just can’t. I have things to do on the weekends since I work all week long.
Bikestation to the rescue!
Bikestation has acquired 100 or so licenses and is able to issue them. They’ve picked Thursdays, and Thursdays ONLY. Why? Because that’s when they’ll be doing it.
Bring your bike, bring 2 bucks, and if you happen to have a proof of sale, that would be a huge help!
Bikestation is located in the downtown Transit Mall
221 E First St.
562.436.2453
