Walid Ziada, 36, accepted a plea deal from the city that requires him to pay a $600 fine and not drive a cab for four days. He also has to take an anger management class.

Ziada said he took the deal because “I don’t want to risk losing my license.”

The incident took place in January 2009. Jeffrey Bierbrodt, 39, said he came out of a bar in Lake View and began taking pictures of his friends and the street.

Ziada claims he told Bierbrodt to stop taking pictures of him, which led to Bierbrodt hitting Ziada in the face with a camera.

Bierbrodt claims that Ziada got out of his cab and came after him, and Bierbrodt was acting in self defense.

Ziada said another man with Bierbrodt, Bryan Ketter, also hit him. Ziada followed a car containing Bierbrodt, Ketter and others to a parking lot. The parties gave different versions of what happened next — with Bierbrodt and his companions claiming Ziada tried to run people over, while Ziada said they pounded on his cab.

Ketter was found guilty of misdemeanor battery, but Bierbrodt was acquitted.

The United Taxidrivers Community Council, a driver advocacy group, has highlighted the Ziada case as an example of the problem of violence against cabdrivers.

Both Bierbrodt and Julie Wayland, 41, of Lake View, one of the other people in the car, complained about Ziada to the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, accusing him of unsafe driving, abusive behavior and discourteous conduct. The city dismissed Bierbrodt’s complaint and all but one count of Wayland’s.

“I’m glad that he has to take an anger management class because I think he clearly needs it and at least for four days he’ll be off the road,” said Wayland. “I really think he drove recklessly.”

Ziada has filed a civil suit against Ketter and Bierbrodt.

Ziada is currently the defendant in a personal injury lawsuit filed on behalf of Chicago attorney Tom Leahy, in a separate incident. The suit claims that Leahy’s daughter was a passenger in a cab Ziada was driving on Feb. 7, 2008. The cab broke down on the Kennedy Expressway, and Tom Leahy came to get his daughter in his car.

The suit claims that in attempt to collect the fare, Ziada reached into Tom Leahy’s car to get grab the ignition key, and in the process, hit Leahy in the jaw.

Ziada admits he grabbed for the key after Leahy had made an obscene gesture when Ziada asked for his fare. But Ziada, while admitting he “made a mistake” in grabbing for the key and not just calling police, denies he hit Leahy.

When the company starts its weekly cruises again next January, it will not visit Bahrain because in its first season, which ended in April, passengers had been put off the destination by unscrupulous taxi drivers overcharging them and the distance between the port and the city centre.

The Miami-based Royal Caribbean launched its first cruises around the Gulf in January, bringing more than 32,000 passengers to the region in four months on its Brilliance of the Seas liner, which carries up to 2,500 guests. The one-week cruises, which sailed out of Dubai, stopped in Muscat, Fujairah, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain.

A 2,000-passenger ship brings an average revenue of US$274,165 (Dh1 million) to each port of call, according to research by the shipping news organisation Seatrade. Bahrain has cited the cruise sector as an important part of its tourism strategy.

The Brilliance of the Seas cruises included a stop at Bahrain’s new Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Port.

“We have taken Bahrain out of the itinerary,” said Helen Beck, the regional sales director of Royal Caribbean. “We had quite a lot of negativity from UK guests in particular.”

She said the cruises would instead feature an extended overnight stop in Muscat, rather than visit Bahrain.

“We’re speaking to the tourism department in Bahrain and taking the feedback to pieces,” said Ms Beck. “There’s an awful lot of things to do and see. We’re working very closely to get the issues resolved and get them [Bahrain] back into the programme as soon as possible”

Bahrain’s tourism sector, part of the country’s ministry of culture and information, declined to comment. Guests from the UK accounted for about 55 per cent of the passengers on Royal Caribbean’s Gulf cruises in the first season.

German and US passengers made up the bulk of the rest. A few guests came from the Gulf region.

“The first season in any destination is always interesting,” said Ms Beck, adding the region had a lot of potential but there was still much work to be done in the region’s fledgling cruise sector. The voyages have been running near full capacity so far.

Royal Caribbean plans to run cruises over the same period next year but will then sail during the standard November-to-April season. Miss Beck said one of the main issues still to be resolved was the fact that passengers from certain countries had to buy multiple visas to visit the different destinations the Gulf cruise called at in the UAE.

“That really does present us with a challenge and drives away some potential guests,” said Ms Beck.

Also, she said, destinations in the region needed to consider locating their cruise terminals away from commercial shipping ports, which were generally unattractive points of entry for cruise passengers.

Feedback from passengers on their visits to Abu Dhabi was generally positive but as in the case of Bahrain, a number of people complained they had been overcharged by taxi drivers, who behaved like “bees around a honey pot” when passengers disembarked at Port Zayed, Ms Beck said.

“If it’s the first impression that people get of a destination, it stays with them,” she said, adding that Royal Caribbean planned to discuss the situation with the relevant authorities.

The Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority is carrying out a feasibility study on building a dedicated cruise terminal. The authority said a preferred site had been identified, which it said would be needed to advance the emirate’s ambitions of growing its ports sector.

The authority said the choice of site was awaiting government approval. Abu Dhabi is looking at a target of 300 ships and more than 600,000 passengers a year by 2030.

From: Thenational.ae