By Dan Murphy
The City Council voted 11-2 on Wednesday, April 2, to pass an ordinance that beginning next January, will require third-party food delivery drivers to obtain permits to work in Boston.
Food delivery apps, including DoorDash, UberEats, and GrubHub, are now required to obtain a permit and renew that license annually, but they aren’t currently required to have insurance to cover any uninsured or underinsured drivers.
Per the ordinance, companies will face a fine of up to $300 per day for each restaurant the company delivers for, if they don’t renew their permits every year.
In February, Mayor Michelle Wu filed an ordinance with the City Council to require food delivery apps to obtain a permit that “would require the companies to have liability insurance coverage for all drivers using their platform, including those using motorcycles, mopeds, and electric scooters, and to share aggregate data on delivery trips,” according to the city.
That ordinance, however, didn’t apply to small businesses with a small number of delivery drivers or other types of deliveries, such as those made by FedEx, UPS, or Amazon.