Oak Bluffs residents voted overwhelmingly to ban two-rider moped rentals as part of a bylaw amendment at a special town meeting Tuesday.

The bylaw change is the latest step in a decades-long campaign to curb moped crashes on the Vineyard. There have been several high-profile crashes over the years, leading to various efforts to make the Island roads safer.

Moderator Jack Law and attorney Michael Goldsmith look over the meeting.

Ray Ewing

Moderator Jack Law and attorney Michael Goldsmith look over the meeting.

Ray Ewing

The amendment, also set to reduce the maximum number of moped rental licenses from five to three and reduce the number of moped registration decals the select board can issue each year, passed 68–6. 

On stage at the Performing Arts Center, town moderator Jack Law introduced the article and immediately invited select board chair Dion Alley to propose an amendment cleaning up the language, which passed after one voter asked for clarification on it and another voter argued that fines for violations of the bylaw are too low. Mr. Law then asked for a motion to vote on the entire article but did not invite further discussion.

Renters have historically been allowed to have both a driver and a passenger on a single moped, a practice that town officials said contributes to more crashes with unseasoned drivers.

While there have been attempts to ban rental mopeds altogether or require motorcycle licenses for drivers, those have been a struggle to pass and advocates have said the new bylaw is a practical measure to make the Island safer. 

“Ideally, if there was a way to make [rental mopeds] go away, that would be my first choice, but I’m a realist,” Tim Rich, a leader of the Rental Moped Action Committee, said in the lead-up to town meeting.

John Leone, the partial owner of the three remaining moped rental businesses in Oak Bluffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday, but previously said that the bylaw could negatively affect his businesses.

Roughly 80 people turned out at the regional high school Tuesday to vote on the 14-article warrant. All dealt with bylaw language and passed largely without discussion. The meeting lasted roughly an hour.

Town officials deal with the issues with the clicker technologies.

Ray Ewing

Town officials deal with the issues with the clicker technologies.

Ray Ewing

The first several articles sought to update and amend municipal personnel bylaws regulating, for example, appointment procedures for town employees. Other articles sought to codify existing committees’ current functions, 

Residents voted to incorporate the town administrator’s role in the Oak Bluffs bylaws ahead of town administrator Deborah Potter’s planned departure from the town’s top position in 2026.

There was also an article seeking to update the town’s bylaw protecting wetlands, adding “ecological climate resilience criteria as defined by the Department of Environmental Protection” to the list of interests protected by the bylaw.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the town piloted an electronic voting system, where residents used clickers to cast their votes and real-time results were projected on the auditorium’s big screen. 

However, technical difficulties with the clickers posed challenges. The first two articles had already passed when officials realized less than half of votes were being counted, prompting a re-vote on those two articles. Despite the delays, voters overwhelmingly agreed at the end of the meeting that they liked the technology and would want to use it again.

All 14 passed articles will now go before the state for review before being officially adopted into the town bylaws.