Eight Car Rental Medallions To Be Awarded To New Companies By Select Board

The Select Board voted 3-1 on Monday to award four rental car medallions each to a pair of new agencies on the island, conditional on the companies securing necessary permits and providing a business plan.

“Prices are extremely high in the rental market, and my inclination is the benefit to the community of allowing new entrants into the market is the potential for more competition, and also, we’ve had some commitments to a variety of vehicle types from some of the applicants, which I found very compelling,” Select Board vice chair Brooke Mohr said at the meeting Monday.

The medallions, which were surrendered over a year ago, are set to be redistributed to Compass Pointe Rentals and Grey Lady Jeeps. The two companies will need to return to the Select Board’s next licensing and petitions meeting in September with a business plan to gain final approval from the Select Board. Select Board members suggested they favored the two applicants because they were new companies and local businesses.

“I’m supporting the local business aspect of it,” Select Board member Jill Vieth said.

Matt Fee was the lone Select Board member to vote against awarding the medallions, arguing that it was premature given outstanding issues with the rental car medallion bylaw, the high levels of traffic on-island, and a lack of understanding about what the medallions are worth.

“I don't have a clear recommendation from staff with a study and understanding of why we're doing it and how we're going to roll this out, and I’m worried that if I make a decision here, I'm just going to be making this worse,” Fee said. “We’re giving something away for free. We’re not using market forces. I’m a big proponent of market forces. I think if people had to bid, right now, even, I think we would understand what the value of these things [is].”

The Select Board plans to review the car rental bylaw in full this December.

Pat Tully and Daniel Walsh’s Compass Pointe Rentals, which proposed renting vehicles for commercial use as part of its business plan, partnered with fellow applicant Geoff Smith to offer a unified proposal. Smith owns a plot of land on Old South Road where the cars could be stored, and also rents a second parcel from the airport. Their application also suggested offering capped, discounted rates to island residents in need of alternative transportation.

Nicholas Amendalore’s Grey Lady Jeeps received the other four medallions. Grey Lady Jeeps has previously operated using the car-sharing platform Turo, receiving high marks from users.

Of the applicants who do not already operate a car rental agency on Nantucket, only off-island car rental giant Enterprise Rent-A-Car was not awarded permits.

The Select Board was poised to award the medallions at a meeting last month but delayed after learning that space at the airport, which multiple applicants had suggested they would like to use, was unavailable.

“Currently we do not have any open counter space for another rental car agency,” acting airport manager Preston Harimon said. “It’s something we would have to look at internally to see if there is something feasible we can move around.”

While the Select Board had previously voted to award the medallions to new car rental agencies, several of Nantucket’s existing rental agencies submitted applications after the Select Board’s most recent meeting, including Hertz, the largest player in the island’s car rental scene.

Hertz currently holds 310 of the 692 medallions already awarded, but leaves around 122 unused. A Hertz attorney claimed this was necessary to allow Hertz to “swap out cars” on-island, but his explanation did not convince the Select Board, which has long criticized Hertz for allegedly hoarding the medallions and blocking other players from entering the market. At times, the Select Board has discussed the possibility of trying to claw back the large number of medallions Hertz does not use and redistribute them to other rental agencies.

“I thought this was April Fools’ Day because I couldn’t believe it,” licensing administrator Amy Baxter said of the application from Hertz.

Inevitably, Select Board members occasionally verged into discussing Turo, the peer-to-peer car rental service sometimes described as Airbnb for cars, which Nantucket has avoided cracking down on as regulations remain pending before the state legislature.

Chapter 58 of Nantucket's town code governs rental cars on the island through a medallion system and caps the number of rentals at 700 for the entire island. The regulations require companies to obtain a medallion from the town for each rental car they operate and establish a fine of $300 per day for any violations.