Law would prohibit MARTA arrests for selling tokens at face value

By Nancy Badertscher
Wednesday, February 8, 2006, 03:05 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia House passed legislation Wednesday that would prohibit MARTA police from arresting customers who give away transit tokens or sell them at face value.

The bill was introduced after MARTA police were publicly derided for arresting Atlantan Donald Pirone last fall.

Pirone was on his way to a job at the Georgia World Congress Center when he spotted a fellow MARTA rider having trouble getting a transit token out of the machine.

He said he gave the passenger token, and the passenger insisted on giving him its $1.75 face value.

MARTA police detained Pirone for two hours and cited him for violating a law that prohibits the sale of tokens by anyone but transit system employees.

Jocelyn Baker, spokeswoman for MARTA, said Wednesday that officials with the Fulton County Solicitor’s Office have notified the transit system “they will not be pursing the case? against Pirone.

State Rep. Harry Geisinger (R-Roswell), a member of a legislative committee with MARTA oversight, said good Samaritans like Pirone would no longer face punishment under his bill, which cleared the House 157 to 0.

He said the existing law was “so bad? a person could not buy tokens and give them to friends so they could all ride a train together.

“This simply corrects that problem,? said Geisinger.

He said Pirone’s arrest received national and international attention.

“The perception was MARTA looked foolish,? Geisinger said.

MARTA estimates it has $10 million a year in fare-related losses, and its executives wanted, with the existing law, to make sure they “got anybody and everybody,? Geisinger said.

Baker said MARTA officials’ only concern is financial. “As passenger revenues make up a significant portion of MARTA’s operating budget, our main concern is and always has been that anyone who rides the system has paid the appropriate fare.