He became a fan of the ride-hailing service, he said, after he soured on taxis.

As he explained it recently, one of the duties when you own a late-night eatery is making sure your workforce is able to make it safely to work and back, night after night. That's how he became a fan of Uber, the ride-hailing service many of his employees now use — often at his expense, he says — to commute to work.

"They didn't want to take people to East Boston, because they didn't want to pay the tolls, or they didn't want to take them to Dorchester," Siddell said. "It's just not fair."


Siddell doesn't normally pay much attention to the machinations at the State House. But he's aware that lawmakers are wrestling with what to do about regulating the ride-hailing industry. "I just hope whatever they do, it doesn't affect service," he said.

As the legislative session races to a close on July 31, one item that bears watching is the outcome of deliberations of the ride-hailing industry. Both the House and the Senate have passed bills that would create new guidelines, but their ideas about what to do are far apart. And with just a weekend left to resolve the differences, compromise could prove elusive. That would be unfortunate — especially for users of the popular services.

The battle over regulating Uber and Lyft didn't take long to become a fight between an old-school, but politically entrenched, cab industry, and a popular new service that has thrived with minimal government oversight.

There's plenty at stake in the fight. Taxi owners complain that their medallions are becoming less valuable by the day. Meanwhile, Uber has threatened to leave the state if it has to operate under regulations it considers onerous.


The legislative chambers took classically opposing sides.

The House bill could have been written by the cab industry, which I mean as anything but a compliment. It would have barred the ride-hailing services from picking up customers at the Boston Convention Center in South Boston for five years, which is ridiculous.

The Senate version was far more friendly to Uber and Lyft. It scrapped the convention center ban and stripped out requirements for fingerprinting of drivers and state-mandated background checks. It also imposes a 10-cent fee for each ride, with the proceeds turned over to the cities and towns where the ride originates. The cities and towns could use that money for whatever they want.

The differences between the bills, while significant, are not insurmountable. But the calendar has become a huge obstacle. Though the Legislature has been in session for two years, many major issues are still in the pipeline for resolution before lawmakers go home early next week. But only so many major bills can pass in a weekend.

A person with direct knowledge of the House-Senate negotiations over ride-hailing suggested that not passing a bill might be preferable to bringing a flawed bill to the floor. That sentiment isn't surprising. If there is a more venerable Beacon Hill tradition than leaving everything for the last days, it's hard to know what that is. Yet that looms as the most likely outcome.

This is a dispute lawmakers can and should resolve before the gavel comes down on this session. Uber and Lyft have thrived for several reasons, but the biggest is that they fill a need that the taxi industry does not. It's time to stop protecting an industry that hasn't worked well for years, and make room for innovation.


Few would dispute that ride-hailing services need rules to live by. But the legislature will have to choose between embracing innovation and stifling it. For a state that prides itself on being an incubator of new ideas, that shouldn't be a hard choice.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Adrian_Walker.