King Porte
In the years leading up to 9/11 the San Diego travel scene was experiencing a phenomenally successful period of growth. Everyone involved was making money and enjoying the endeavor. Primarily because all facets of the industry were working together in friendliness and harmony.
During that time I owned and operated a prosperous transportation company that was ranked number one in San Diego. If you asked a concierge in any hotel in the city for transportation, they would recommend my company first. We were that good.
Then 9/11 hit and the whole travel landscape changed. The pie that we were all sharing shrunk. The better companies, the cream, continued to flourish while the lesser ones struggled. One of those that struggled was the independent taxi driver.
The independent taxi drivers had been repeatedly admonished for miserable service (everything from poor hygiene to cheating customers to the safety of their ancient vehicles) by everyone whom they encountered, from City government, the Airport Authority, the hotels and even the locals. Rather than improve the quality of their service, they instead chose to fight dirty.
Leading those dirty fighters was an unruly gang of Iraqi and Middle Eastern immigrants who drove taxis in San Diego. These men (they were all men) threatened and carried out acts of violence against the transportation companies then working the travel scene. They eventually forced over two dozen locally owned companies out of business. Mine was one of them.
Keep in mind that, at the time that these mostly Iraqi immigrants were forcing American mom and pop businesses to close, our young men and women were serving in our military in Iraq, sacrificing their lives so that the Iraqis there could get a taste of freedom.
King Porte is a fictionalized accounting of that dirty fight. Any references to historical events, real people,or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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