There is an offer on the table that would end what for decades has been the bane of existence for many Martha’s Vineyard summers: rental mopeds.
The owner of Oak Bluffs’ final three operational moped licenses is offering to sell all three to the town, or to any nonprofit or interested party.
“How bad do you want to get rid of them?” John Leone asked rhetorically in a recent interview with The Times.
For Leone — the owner of licenses at Island Hoppers, Ride On Moped and King’s Rentals for the past roughly 15 years — the price is $1.9 million. He says that is a fair, market-rate deal for the approximately 180 mopeds he’s permitted to rent.
Moped rentals, while historically popular for summer visitors to the Island, have been problematic for many residents. They slow down traffic on narrow, crowded roads and have caused many accidents, some fatal like this past August when a young woman died in Oak Bluffs near Big Bridge.
Selling off the three licenses would effectively take rental mopeds off Vineyard streets, because the town, in perpetuity, could choose to not allow any other licenses, while taking rentals off the street at those three locations. Tisbury was the only other town with a rental license, but the select board last summer voted to reject an application from Island Adventure Rentals to rent mopeds. And public opinion has strongly favored getting rid of moped rentals.
If Oak Bluffs were to buy the three licenses back, it would likely have to go before voters at town meeting. Leone said it could be a collective of towns across the Island that could pool funding.
But there is a question of how it would happen. So far, Leone hasn’t gotten much interest from town officials. Leone, with evidence in emails provided to The Times, says that the town’s select board has not offered to meet in a public meeting to discuss an alternative to the moped ban legislation, since he began trying in March.
Reached for comment, Oak Bluffs select board chair Gail Barmakian said that the town has not seen an official proposal with a dollar amount from Leone. Also, she said that the town would need to check with its legal counsel to see if it were even feasible. But, not to this proposal specifically, she noted that there is interest in getting rental mopeds off the streets.
Currently, Leone and his three licenses are in a bit of a limbo period. He has had trouble selling the licenses to another owner, with Vineyard towns pursuing state legislation to ban moped rentals outright — passed at town meetings as home rule petitions. That’s a tough market for a potential buyer.
But at the same time, with the legislation failing to pass after multiple attempts, Leone said it likely never will pass, and he will probably pass the business down through his family, in perpetuity.
Or he will reach a compromise with the community.
“I’m 61; I’m getting older,” Leone said, who also has rental businesses on Block Island, where there is a similar controversy over moped rentals. “I’m throwing it out there to see if there is interest.”
Some Island residents who have pushed for the removal of rentals are intrigued by the $1.9 million proposal.
Todd Rebello, a former select board member in Oak Bluffs who helped draft regulations in the early 2000s, indicated that Leone’s offer could be reasonable. Rebello, during his time on the board, worked with local rental agencies to decrease the number of mopeds available in town. And he and the town had success.
“We went from 675 mopeds in 2003, until today, we are under 200 mopeds,” Rebello said.
The effort, he said, included negotiating with rental agencies to give them something in return for eliminating mopeds from their lots. Rebello said the town provided a liquor license to the Sandbar and Grill in exchange for removing mopeds. At the 2004 Oak Bluffs town meeting, voters agreed to reduce the number of licenses from six to five licenses, taking 80 mopeds off the street at the same time. The select board, in 2016, also worked on an exchange with the owner of Sun ’n’ Fun rentals to provide additional Jeep rentals instead of mopeds, taking another roughly 50 rentals off the street.
As for Leone’s business holdings, Rebello said that he originally sat down with the license holder to try and reach an agreement, but Leone was holding firm at $3 million, which Rebello thought was too steep. But coming to under $2 million, Rebello said, could be realistic.
“The concept as it is, I think can be done,” the former select board member told The Times. “I cannot accept the fact that many of these people who invested all this money for second homes would not be on board with getting rid of what is a nuisance to them. I think there is a possibility now that the number has come down considerably.”
Tim Rich, former Chilmark Police chief, who has been a longtime advocate for banning mopeds, was somewhat conflicted over the potential deal to sell the licenses back to the town. He was in favor of any means of getting the rentals off the streets, but believed that the town could have done a better job enforcing its regulations in the past. Earlier this year, the town agreed to allow Leone to consolidate two licenses on the Island Hopper lot. Rich believes that that equates to a transfer, which isn’t allowed under the bylaws, a point that Leone and the town have disputed.
But Rich is also conflicted over whether taxpayer money should be spent buying the licenses, but believed that if a group of individuals were to come forward with the money, he would back it.
“I support anything that achieves the goal of not having rental mopeds on Martha’s Vineyard. As long as it’s legal,” Rich told The Times. “But I don’t like the extortion attitude behind it.”
For Leone, he said the $1.9 million is a fair, market-rate value for which he would be willing to part with his business. Either way, he’s hoping to open a dialogue.
“Whether you love them, hate them, or are neutral — this should be brought to the town’s people for discussion,” Leone said.
