Last week Bird scooters made their unannounced appearance in Birmingham and Homewood, much to the surprise of city officials. How our city reacts to this event marks a pivotal moment in its acceptance (or rejection) of disruptive entrepreneurship.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with Bird, they are electric scooters that, unlike Zyp bikes, don’t require a docking station. If you see one on the sidewalk you can grab it and take it for a ride, leaving it at your destination, wherever that may be.

So what’s the big deal? Well, many people in other US cities seem to really like these scooters. Bird, which was just an idea a year or so ago, is now valued as a company at 2 billion dollars. They have grown fast.

Bird’s strategy for going to new markets has been, to say the least, disruptive. In many cases they drop off scooters first and figure out business licenses later. That’s what they did in Birmingham. Some cities have accepted the scooters and worked with Bird on regulatory compliance. Others have fought the scooters, removing them from the streets and impounding them at the police station.

What’s Birmingham’s reaction going to be? So far the signals aren’t great. Council-members in Birmingham and Homewood have gone on the record to state they are concerned about regulations and business licenses. Birmingham has apparently contacted Bird and asked that the entire downtown area be designated as off- limits to Bird scooters. Homewood police have been impounding scooters and as of this posting, there are currently no Birds available in Homewood.

Here’s a screenshot of the app, and the big ugly red no-Bird zone in the middle of the city. The “Anti Bird Zone” text is mine.

The problem is, as startup entrepreneur, here’s what I see when I look at this map.

When you wall off the city to new business innovation, you’re sending a horrible signal to the innovators behind those walls. Most of the city’s technology startups, from Shipt to Wyndy to Fleetio operate in or near this red zone.

Let’s talk about Shipt for a second. Shipt is one of the most important companies to ever come out of Birmingham. It went from an idea to a $550 million Target acquisition in just a few short years. Our city’s leaders, rightfully so, love to hold out Shipt as a beacon of what’s possible for entrepreneurs in our city. But Shipt, like Bird, grew through disruption. In the early days Shipt tried to partner with grocery stores, but those big corporate clients didn’t take Shipt’s calls. So instead of waiting around they just started sending shoppers. Much like our city and Bird scooters, grocery stores weren’t quite sure what to do when they started to see armies of green Shipt shirts. The smart ones got onboard. The dumb ones got left behind.

Birmingham, you can’t hold up Shipt on one hand and ban Bird with the other. Startups are messy, disruptive, and don’t always get the requisite licenses. Mayor Woodfin, it’s been very encouraging to hear you talk about the role entrepreneurship and innovation play in our city’s future. But now you’re being tested. By drawing a red map around our city’s entrepreneurial district, you’re failing this test.

When the new hot company decides to come and expand to Birmingham, that’s a good thing. It’s exciting. We want to be a city where startups feel welcome to test their business models. A startup like Bird may not fit neatly into any existing city regulations. That’s often the case with new ideas. Birmingham and Homewood should outwardly embrace new innovation, even if it’s disruptive. That doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done between Bird and city government, but provisional status to operate should be granted while it’s figured out.

By removing the red wall you’ll be sending a signal to all Birmingham’s amazing and growing startups that innovation, even disruptive innovation, is welcomed in our city.