The city of Norman has impounded more than 100 electric Bird scooters since Wednesday evening.
Bird, a California-based company that owns electric, dockless scooters, released its scooters into the Norman area and around OU in mid-August. However, the company did not have the proper documents or licenses to have the scooters around town.
Norman Development Coordinator Terry Floyd said the city gave the company a formal notification to remove the scooters from public areas by 10 p.m. Sept. 12.
“We asked first on Sept. 6 to voluntarily pick the scooters up by 10 p.m.,” Floyd said.
Public right-of-ways consist of land that is not private, state or federal property. Scooters on private land were not subject to impoundment. The city will impound more scooters as they find them in violation of city ordinances.
Floyd said the company has a draft of a revocable license agreement to the city to have the scooters in public right-of-ways. The agreement will go to Norman City Council for consideration as soon as the draft is finalized.
“Obviously our ordinances, when they were drafted years ago, did not conceive of dockless scooters,” Floyd said.
Floyd said if the council approves the agreement, the next step would be to discuss other parameters for new ordinances for more products like the Bird scooters.
The company will have to go through standard impound procedures to retrieve the rest of its scooters.
“As we can work toward a resolution for this ... once we finalize those agreements, and if they’re approved, the scooters will be back, and there may be additional companies that can enter into the market with those agreements,” Floyd said. “It’s not a ban on the scooters, but they do have to be legal within our ordinances.”
