San Antonio will be a no-go zone starting next month for ride-hailing services that do not agree to meet the city’s new regulations, but islands in the city where companies such as Uber could operate might be carved out.

Though it intends to leave San Antonio, Uber has said it will continue offering rides in unincorporated Bexar County and suburban cities. Uber drivers who pick up passengers outside San Antonio will be able to drop them off inside the city limits, but cannot pick them up inside San Antonio.

Interim Police Chief Anthony Treviño said this week that drivers not permitted to work in the city could still scoop up passengers at the AT&T Center because it is owned by the county. That raises the question: What other properties in San Antonio might be “safe zones”? The county, for example, also owns the jail, a number of parks and parking areas.

In an email Friday, police spokesman Sgt. Javier Salazar said, “If the car is on a city street when the passenger boards, the ordinance applies.” He added that a county parking lot, for example, is not a city street.

County Judge Nelson Wolff, who has invited Uber and Lyft to keep operating in unincorporated parts of the county and any willing suburban city, has asked county staff to examine the question. The district attorney’s civil section was reviewing the ordinance Friday, officials said.

The interest in where San Antonio ends and county property begins comes as Uber and Lyft plan to cease operations in San Antonio in response to city regulations that the companies say are too burdensome. Lyft indicated last week that it would leave the market entirely, but it did not return messages this week seeking confirmation.

The new rules for the companies, known as transportation-network companies, or TNCs, go into effect April 1.

Anyone hoping to surreptitiously snag an Uber ride within the limits after April 1 will be left disappointed: The company will shut down its app inside the city. But it can exempt individual properties such as the AT&T Center to allow the app to function there, spokeswoman Debbee Hancock said.

When Lyft and Uber arrived in San Antonio a year ago, they were operating, according to police, in violation of city code. Last year, police issued 16 citations to drivers and impounded three vehicles used by TNC drivers before the city stopped enforcing the code while officials wrote new rules, police said this week.

The Police Department will be responsible for enforcing the new regulations. In a statement, police said TNC drivers who do not have a San Antonio permit would have to show that the trip originated outside city limits if they are dropping off a passenger inside the city and are questioned.

“We deal with this with limousines often, and between discussions with the driver and sometimes the passengers, we can determine the pickup location,” the statement said.

John Bouloubasis, president of Yellow Cab San Antonio, has called for stricter regulations on TNCs. He said he was confident that police could enforce the policy. The regulations adopted by the City Council this month include fees on TNCs that are meant to cover the cost of an additional inspector at the Police Department.

“They’re going to have to be strategic about it,” Bouloubasis said about the city’s enforcement of the code.

Lyft and Uber could, of course, keep their footholds in San Antonio if they agreed to follow the city’s permitting process. Ideally, both the companies and city officials said, the companies would remain here, but the two sides disagree on a key component of the policy: city-reviewed background checks.

The city’s policy would allow drivers to start working once they pass the company’s background check, but it still requires them to pass the city background check, including fingerprinting, within 14 days. Lyft and Uber said that extra step is unnecessary because they put drivers through stringent reviews already.

David Tolliver, 50, has been driving for Uber for almost nine months to supplement his family’s income. He said he has picked up passengers from suburban cities and taken them downtown in the past.

But once Uber stops operating in San Antonio, he said, “you can’t pick them up once you get them there.”

Tolliver did not blame Uber for not wanting to meet San Antonio’s standards, which he called “sanctions.” He said he had started driving for Uber in Austin in recent weeks and would consider driving there more often instead of trying to rely on trips originating in the county or suburban cities.

“Why is it that we can’t go ahead and negotiate something that is amenable to everybody?” he said.

Some city officials thought that is exactly what they had done. The council in December adopted rules to regulate TNCs, but when Lyft and Uber warned that they may leave the city because they considered the policy too strict, the city delayed implementation so the council could revisit the issue.

Last week, the council took up the revised rules that most members thought would appease the TNCs and keep them in town. But in the days before the March 5 vote, the TNCs said the updated regulations were still too onerous, leaving some city officials frustrated.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Chris Paddie, R-Marshall, has introduced a bill in the Legislature supported by the TNCs that would establish statewide regulations, including a provision that allows TNCs to hire third-party screeners to conduct background checks.

Last year, Lyft stopped operating in Houston in protest of that city’s TNC policies. In December, Uber suspended service in Portland, Oregon. It agreed to stop operating there until April 9 to give city officials a chance to create regulations. If officials do not do so by the deadline, Uber can restart service as the city continues to work on a policy.

Uber has continued to offer rides in and from Portland suburbs, however, and in a blog post last month, the company wrote that about one in three rides from the suburbs were ending in Portland city limits.

djoseph@express-news.net

Twitter: @DrewQJoseph