The TLC is lifting the hack license of a cabby who made an unrelenting series of sexual come-ons to a female passenger while transporting her home from La Guardia Airport.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission successfully argued that Mirza Baig, 22, was a “threat to the riding public.”
“I find the respondent’s conduct unprofessional, crude and offensive and it deserves the severest punishment,” concluded Tynia Richard, an administrative law judge for the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, the agency that recommended that Baig’s hack license be revoked.
On March 17, Baig — a Pakistani native who had been on the job for seven weeks — picked up the woman at the airport and took her to Brooklyn.
During the $37 ride, Baig asked the woman “personal questions,” including whether she had a boyfriend, she told investigators.
“She lied, answering yes,” the ruling noted.
Baig then made a series of sleazy personal inquiries about his passenger’s sex life that left her feeling “violated,” she said.
He “asked whether she was going to her boyfriend’s house. He then asked who she would be sleeping with that night and whether she would be sleeping with her boyfriend,” the ruling states.
Baig told her they should “get together,” the decision adds.
When they got to her apartment, Smith said she gave Baig a tip of 15 to 20 percent, “wanting not to anger him” — even though he declined to help with her luggage.
“He then yelled out the window, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to, you know, come back with me?’ ” the record states.
She flipped him the bird.
As Smith “fiddled with her keys in an attempt to enter her apartment, [Baig] stared at her from the cab and ended the encounter by telling her, “You have a real nice ass, baby,’ before driving away,” the ruling explains.
Cynthia Fisher, Baig’s attorney, called the ordeal a misunderstanding.
“I think what happened is that he was genuinely flirting with her and meant no disrespect,” she said.
TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg said, “It is is unacceptable for a driver to cross the line of propriety with a passenger, and in the rare occasions when it happens, we are grateful to be alerted to it so we can take the appropriate actions, as we did in this instance.”