Small taxi and airport-shuttle businesses say they feel as though they are under attack.

In mid-February the Salt Lake City Council passed changes to its ground-transportation ordinances disallowing taxi and some shuttle vehicles to be older than six years or seven years if the odometer reads fewer than 350,000 miles.

This impacts every business that makes pick-ups and drop-offs to the Salt Lake City International Airport which includes those coming from Park City as well.

Then, last Thursday, the Park City Council heard arguments for and against changes to its own ground-transportation ordinance.

Park City’s proposals would likely be more lenient on the age of vehicles although the initial call was for a five-year limit but it would include background checks on drivers and require companies to have a “drug-free workplace” policy.

Local companies say these changes are unnecessary and would make doing business more expensive.

The proposals were drafted by city officials, said Park City business license clerk Shelly Hatch.

They are a blend of recommendations made by the council, by city staffers, and by members of the industry, said transit-transportation manager Kent Cashel.

The age-limit requirements are aimed at promoting the use of vehicles that are safe, cleaner and more attractive, he added.

The recommendations from the industry were formulated by a task force made up of local business representatives initially formed in 2005, according to paperwork the staff submitted to the council.

A list of questions previously submitted to the city on the legality of specific proposals makes clear the task force had a singular goal: reducing the number of taxis operating in Summit County.

Small businesses are crying foul, saying the new recommendations are targeting ways to push them out of business.

Cashel rejects this assessment, saying Park City’s ordinances almost perfectly mirror Salt Lake City on these issues.

Rob O’Brien, owner of 649-TAXI, attended Thursday’s meeting to protest age limits on vehicles.

To safely traverse ice- and snow-covered roads in Salt Lake and Summit counties, a vehicle should be all-wheel drive. To haul enough people, it should be a van or suburban. These vehicles are so expensive it takes many years of use to get the investment out of them, he said.

New and small companies buy these vehicles used to save money, which means they already have many miles on the odometer.

If the limit is passed, O’Brien said he’ll be forced to operate fewer vehicles.

There just isn’t a need for these rules, he added.

“Park City has one of the best-looking cab fleets. They’re Cadillacs, Escalades Range Rovers. It’s not like there are old beat-up Chevys we need to raise the bar for,” he said.

Zafod Beatlebrox, owner of Music Taxi, said he supports a 10-year age limit on vehicles, and acknowledged there are some problems with the quality of taxi and shuttle drivers, but said most of the proposed changes are efforts by others in the industry to “corner the market and limit competition.”

He said the five-year age limit proposal was hypocritical. The companies that used new vehicles and pushed for the change used “ancient” vehicles as they were getting established in the market.

Because the work in Park City is seasonal, it would be impossible to do background checks on everyone wanting a job with a local company, he said. The checks would “significantly raise the cost of rides” when there haven’t been any real problems, he said.

If the number of companies operating in Park City is reduced, the consequences will be serious, Beatlebrox said.

Each taxi or shuttle on the road helps to keep 20 or 30 drunk drivers off the road. It also relieves pressure on the city’s limited number of parking spaces, he said.

Christine Garcia with CitiRide of Park City said the proposals have caught many companies by surprise. These changes have been discussed for years, but for Salt Lake City to move this year and Park City to be discussing changes as well is faster than anticipated.

Currently 40 percent of CitiRide’s fleet is older than the seven-year limit passed by Salt Lake City, she said.

Russell Weeks, public policy analyst for the Salt Lake City Council, said the age limits on vehicles do not apply to limousines including Suburbans and Escalades, buses, mini-buses and specialized vehicles for helping the physically disabled.