Skip to main contentLast week, the Portland City Council upheld a hearings officer’s decision to approve permits for a 3,500-seat music venue on the Central Eastside operated by the promotions giant Live Nation. The vote was unanimous, despite testimony by dozens of people that a Live Nation venue would be calamitous for the Portland music scene.
Among those who submitted written testimony: former City Commissioner Steve Novick, who served on the council from 2013 to 2017 and is seeking election to an expanded 12-member body this November.
Related: Steve Novick’s entrance interview.
Novick cautioned that he wasn’t sure if City Council had any legal grounds for blocking the venue. But he drew an interesting parallel between the decision and one he made nearly a decade ago.
“I live every day with regret for not keeping another lawless company—Uber—out of Portland, with the corresponding impact on our local taxi companies and drivers,” Novick wrote. “I fear that you will live with regret if you have a way to keep Live Nation out, but let them in.”
Uber invaded the Portland taxi market in 2014, operating in defiance of a city transportation bureau Novick oversaw. Novick’s initial hostility and ultimate capitulation to the Silicon Valley company has been recounted several times, first by WW and then, with greater dramatic flair, by Mike Issac in his book on Uber, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. (A portion of the Portland saga is available in the free preview on Amazon.) Isaac’s book makes clear what wasn’t known in Portland at the time: Uber was using code in its app to block Novick’s regulators from hailing cars and citing scofflaw drivers.
Novick has expressed regret for allowing Uber into Portland before, including in a guest op-ed in the Portland Tribune. He raised the comparison with Live Nation again this week at an endorsement interview with WW’s editorial board. Watch the video below: