Six years ago, Vancouver was home to a pretty strict city code prohibiting people from turning their family car into a DIY taxi service.

But then the Great Recession throttled the city budget.

Vancouver officials decided they didn't have the money for inspectors to enforce everything in the code book. So they weeded out the ride-sharing provision and dozens of other rules.

After all, no one at City Hall could remember the last time someone tried to play weekend cabbie without a permit. Who would bother?

There was no way to know it at the time, but that exercise in bureaucracy-trimming paved the way for ride-sharing service Uber to roll into Portland's largest neighbor without notice last week. The controversial-but-cutting-edge San Francisco tech startup didn't need to ask for permission – and it didn't.

"We didn't even know they were operating here," said Chad Eiken, the city's community and economic development director. "We found out when we started getting angry emails from cab drivers in the city."

Uber uses smartphone apps to connect riders to drivers using their personal vehicles as de facto taxis.

If Uber can't operate in Portland, with its strict ordinances designed to protect the taxi industry from competition, the company apparently wants city officials to feel like an army of $1.65-per-mile drivers are amassing on the border.

On Friday, Uber drivers crossed the Columbia River and cruised into enemy territory, delivering free ice cream bars to any Portland resident who requested them using the company's smartphone app. (Playing the ice cream man isn't illegal under the city's taxi code.)

In the past month, the company has been actively recruiting drivers with hundreds of "Make $1,000/week driving for Uber!" Craiglist ads in Vancouver, Salem and Eugene.

Brooke Steger, general manager of Uber's Washington operations, said the company -- recently valued at $17 billion -- is simply expanding by moving into markets where it knows it won't receive strong regulatory resistance. "But I think this obviously drums up more interest in Portland," she said.

"Antiquated regulations"

The service's price options including luxury, SUV and uberX, the lower-cost service.

Drivers use their own cars as de facto cabs. Riders hail rides with the tap of Uber's app that stores credit card information. Both drivers and customers have the ability to use a five-star system to rate each other.

Sure, Portlanders are free to download the app. But when they attempt to summon a ride, the program alerts users that "antiquated regulations make Uber in Portland impossible."

The pop-up message promises that the company is working to change that.

"We're seeing thousands of people in Portland opening up the app every week," Steger said. "It's not uncommon for cities to have antiquated regulations. But there has to be a catalyst for them to be updated."

That catalyst for Portland, she said, should be the fear of a hip, growing city being left behind in the fast-moving sharing economy.

The sharing economy has caught on so quickly that regulators in most cities -- and police -- are scrambling to make sense of its possible implications to local culture and economies. In Denver, a police officer is under investigation for pulling over an Uber car carrying a fare last week and insisting the service was illegal. (Colorado was actually the first state to explicitly legalize ride-sharing.)

Responding to pressure from consumers, the Seattle City council earlier this month approve legislation creating a new regulatory framework for Uber and competitors such as Lyft to operate as "transportation network companies."

But so far, Portland officials have refused to budge to end what amounts to the taxi industry's monopoly, even as they have developed a cordial relationship with home-sharing service Airbnb.

The heavily influential Private for-Hire Transportation Board of Review, which includes representatives from the Portland's taxi and town-car companies, appears dead set against relinquishing any of the city's 460 taxi permits to Uber drivers.

Non-taxi services such as town cars in Portland are also required to charge a premium price over traditional cabs, negating one of the main reasons people choose Uber in other major cities – cheaper rides.

Portland city code also says that town cars must charge more than taxis for similar trips, and -- the biggest obstacle to services like Uber's upscale "Uber Black" service -- an hour must elapse between a call for service and putting a behind in a seat. (Uber cars typically show up in 10 minutes are less.)

In PBOT's hands

Earlier this month, "the Uber issue" shifted from the Office of Financial Management to the Portland Bureau of Transportation and Steve Novick, the city commissioner who oversees transportation policy.

Uber says thousands of people have attempted to hail a ride with the company's app in Portland. Instead of a car, the app sends them a message that takes a shot at the city's strict taxi regulations.

"It's odd to have an industry where there is an absolute cap on the number of people in it and which allocates slots to specific businesses," Novick said. "But there's also a value to having a regulatory structure which ensures that there is 24-hour service and service for the disabled."

Novick said he has yet to take a hard look at the issue, and needs to have a detailed discussion with staff, but he has some preliminary thoughts.

Instead of requiring individual companies to guarantee around-the-clock pickup and service for people with disabilities, he said there may be a way to tax all operators, including Uber, to fund those services for the public.

"It's not fair for Uber to compete against a regulated industry without abiding by the same regulations," he said. "But the overriding issue is whether the regulations should be changed."

While the Portland City Council on Wednesday considered rules on renting out rooms in private homes, another corner of the sharing economy facilitated by sites like Airbnb, Mayor Charlie Hales said the council might soon "wade into the thicket" of taxi regulation.

"Ready or not, here's the future," he said. "We're not done trying to catch up."

Driving scared

There's no doubt that Uber has the taxi industry driving scared everywhere it operates.

In an email recently sent to Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt, the operations manager for Vancouver Cab Co., Shannon Stewart, insisted that the city put the brakes on Uber.

"Their illegal operations are stealing lawful and legal drivers' livelihood, who struggled to pay for the privilege to drive and operate in Vancouver," Stewart wrote. "We struggle to get new drivers given the city's cost, and this will make it virtually impossible for us to get and keep safe legal drivers."

It may not be a fair fight, but Eiken said the city doesn't believe Uber is violating the law in Vancouver.

"We're not looking to track them down and fine (the drivers)," he said. "But they were up front with Seattle and other cities that have allowed them. We would like to hear from them and to get a better understanding of what they're all about."

"Rick"

As of Monday afternoon, UberX driver Rick Strubel, a lanky, talkative 42-year-old life-insurance salesman who is trying make some extra money to buy his kids school clothes, had picked up 25 riders in six days.

Steering his Cerulean blue Chevy Aveo along State Route 14, an iPhone keeping track of the fare mounted on the inside of the windshield, Strubel said he was a bit disappointed; he had expected more business.

One fare had been waiting for a cab at the Vancouver Hilton hotel for half an hour when she decided to download the Uber app and set up an account. "She requested a ride and I was there in less than five minutes," Strubel said.

Of course, she wanted to go to Portland International Airport to catch a flight. As soon as Strubel's Aveo crossed the Columbia River in Portland, the iPhone warned him that he had entered a no-fare zone, he said.

"Man," Strubel said. "I can't wait until we're allowed into Portland."

Elliot Njus of The Oregonian contributed to this story.

-- Joseph Rose