Houston businessman Mike Weingart worried he may have trouble getting a taxi to the airport after a Salt Lake City meeting of 600 travel agents ended last month, so he called the concierge at Grand America Hotel.

Yes, it could be difficult to get a ride, the concierge told him, but if he made a reservation, a car would be waiting for him at checkout Sunday morning.

The ride, in a van under contract with the hotel, cost Wein -gart $35, compared with the $19 taxicab fare he paid a few days earlier for the same 10-mile trip from Salt Lake City International Airport.

"Do I feel ripped off? A little bit. I wasn't going to argue with the concierge. I didn't want to take a chance on missing my flight," said Weingart, an agent with Travel Leaders, a company with $7.3 billion in annual sales.

Like many other visitors to Salt Lake City, Weingart wasn't told the private vehicle service would be more costly. Cab companies that offer cheaper fares also take reservations, and either Wein -gart or the concierge could have made them with a simple phone call. The problem is, no city ordinance requires hotels to post fare differences between taxis and higher-priced contract vehicles.

Instead, the ordinance prohibits hotel doormen only from hailing unmetered vehicles for guests. Some doormen, though, rely on unmetered, higher-priced vehicles for customers seeking both reserved and on-demand rides.

"We have, as a city, lost sight of the goal of providing world-class ground-transportation services," said Jim Curtis, manager of Ute Cab Co., which operates metered taxicabs. "Customers are receiving a disservice through lack of choices, and the citizens of Salt Lake are being deprived since the market for taxis naturally dwindles as it is eroded by gypsy operators who are not obeying the law."

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Review under way » Salt Lake City is rewriting its transportation ordinance, but public hearings so far have focused only on metered taxi service. Those discussions involve whether taxi-service contracts should be put out to bid to encourage newer vehicles with technology such as global-positioning systems. Within the next several weeks, city officials will expand their review to look at the city's patchwork of limousines, shuttles, hotel vehicles and independent drivers. Officials estimate such vehicles outnumber metered taxis two to one.

"I know some hotels are gaming the system," said City Councilman Luke Garrott, chairman of the city's transportation subcommittee. "What we're looking at is setting clear categories for all transportation vehicles and requiring rates to be posted at the airport, hotels and cabstands so people know what they're getting."

For its part, Grand America defends its use of unmetered vehicles, even for on-demand rides.

Many visitors don't want to wait while a taxi is called, said Bruce Fery, executive vice president for the hotel and sister property Little America, the state's two largest hotels. He noted the ordinance allows private drivers to pick up on-demand customers when there's a convention of 5,000 or more in town. That exception presents a challenge for hotels.

"How are we to know when there's a convention that size, and how are we supposed to explain to guests that this time they'll have to wait for a taxi because there's not a big enough convention going on?" Fery asked. "We understand the importance of transportation and we want to work with the city. Transportation is the first and last kiss a city gives to travelers."

Grand America uses private drivers because they are more willing to wait for customers than cabbies, added hotel executive Blake Carling. He insists that metered taxis are welcome at the hotel, but added most cabbies head straight to the airport for more lucrative runs while dodging the shorter, downtown rides.

City Cab manager Bruce Jackson disagrees.

Taxis do wait at other hotels, such as the Sheraton and the Hilton, he said. But he added it is difficult at Grand America because cabbies must get in line behind several contract vehicles parked ahead of them. Why, wonder cabbies, do they have to get in line behind the contract vehicles when the city ordinance specifically bans private drivers from taking on-demand riders?

It's not uncommon for doormen to hail private drivers while ordering regulated taxis off the property, Yellow Cab driver Dan Thomas said.

"I lobbied the city to require hotels to at least put in call boxes so customers have a choice to call a taxi," he said. "Nobody listened."

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How fares vary » Yellow, Ute and City Cab companies operate 268 metered taxis whose fares the city regulates. In addition to the unmetered, unregulated vehicles parked at some of the city's largest hotels, some hotels also offer free courtesy airport rides or they provide shuttle services that cost $3.50 to $15 per passenger. For the contract vans and shuttles, however, many hotels also charge a 10 percent commission. It's included in the fare, bumping up a ride's cost, according to documents on file at Salt Lake City International Airport.

The airport isn't the only destination more costly to reach in an unmetered vehicle.

Contract drivers also charge more for taxi rides downtown, a Salt Lake Tribune spot check found.

For example, the fare for a half-mile unmetered ride set up by a hotel doorman from the Grand America to The Gateway was $15 -- the minimum charge when using a credit card, the driver explained. When cash was used, the charges for the same destination in unmetered vehicles at the Marriott and Little America hotels were $8 and $10, respectively.

In contrast, a Yellow Cab charged $6.25 for the same trip, but with no added credit-card fees. A city ordinance requires cabbies to accept credit cards if that is the rider's preference. Private drivers have no such requirement.

All rides in the sample survey were on-demand and set up on the spot by hotel doormen -- despite the ordinance that allows only metered taxis to be hailed. If a contract vehicle is used, the ordinance states that rides must be prearranged by at least 30 minutes, unless there's a large convention, or at least three people ride together. During The Tribune 's spot survey, a single rider made the request and no sizable convention was in town.

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An investigation, a response » Cab companies long have complained the city does not enforce its on-demand rule. To prove their point, the companies in 1999 hired a private investigator who caught several on-demand rides from a private transportation service. The report, now part of the city record, showed that some doormen were taking tips to send business their way. The city fined that service for the practice.

Two years ago, the city set up a transportation enforcement team, whose job the first year was to educate private drivers about the ordinance. Since then, 100 citations have been issued to contract drivers -- primarily for such offenses as being uninsured, mechanical deficiencies or not undergoing a background check.

Private companies are making 100,000 trips to the airport each year, many illegally taking away rides from cabbies, Yellow Cab attorney Don Winder contends. Yet through May, only six private drivers were cited for picking up riders on demand.

"The numbers don't add up," he said of the number of citations, compared with the number of trips. "It indicates there is inadequate enforcement by the city of unregulated providers."

Mayor Ralph Becker said in a statement he believes enforcement is adequate.

The mayor said daily inspections and enforcement show that only a couple of the 200 transportation companies fail to comply with the ordinance. Becker's spokeswoman declined to name the companies, saying the issues have been resolved. The Tribune on Friday filed a documents request for the information.

Officials disagree about whether the city's transportation system hampers tourism.

Other cities have both taxi and limousine services, and travelers do know the differences, including differences in cost, said Scott Beck, president and chief executive of the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau.

But Bridget Sypolt, with the Dallas-based Meeting Professionals International, whose members make multimillion-dollar decisions about where conventions are held, said travelers want uniformity in those charges.

"It's good that Salt Lake now has public bars where people can get a drink, like in most other cities," she said. "Perhaps the next step should be in transportation to make Salt Lake the perfect convention city."

Although city officials have deliberated for the past four years about changing ground transportation, the system continues to trip up even seasoned travelers.

Chip Eichelberger, a motivational speaker from Knoxville, Tenn., discovered the van ride to catch his flight was $8 more than a cabbie charged a few days earlier to downtown. He would have complained, "but it was early in the morning, and I needed to get to the airport."

Said Washington state businessman Richard Hertzog: "I just relied on the concierge and the doorman to arrange transportation and assumed that they were working on my behalf. I guess I shouldn't have assumed."

dawn@sltrib.com