Just last week, there was a story about how people were using the Ikea Shuttles and to a lesser extent the Ikea Water Taxi service to get to and from Red Hook. At the time, Ikea spokesperson Joe Roth said that Ikea was “thrilled that we are providing free transit options for the people of New York to come to Ikea and to come to Red Hook.” We know that people have been taking advantage of the Water Taxi to get back and forth to Manhattan without necessarily shopping at Ikea. We personally know one resident who’s been using it to get back and forth to work. Well, the “thrill” may be gone.

Here’s one email about the end of the Free Ride:

there have been rumours going around red hook recently that the ikea water taxi would soon only be free for ikea customers (in spite of ikea being quoted everywhere as not minding non-customers riding their water taxi.) I took the water taxi to work this morning from red hook (and, no, i am not an ikea customer): water taxi personnel informed me that the ikea water taxi staff are already officially supposed to be checking for store-receipts / ink stamps when you board on the red hook side – they are just giving us a grace period until they actual charge non-customers for tickets (in other words, people boarding the taxi from the manhattan side get their wrist stamped – if you don’t have a stamp or a store receipt/blue bag when you board on the red hook side, you get charged the $6 fair). sigh.

Another regular rider noted:

IKEA/Water Taxi employees were stamping hands of IKEA-bound passengers as they left Pier 11 this afternoon. Security on the IKEA side of the route confirmed that this was an initial attempt to make the Water Taxi “customer only,” as said that you could not return to Manhattan without a stamped hand. He also said that they had abandoned their efforts, because people were confused, and complained about insufficient signage regarding this new policy.

There’s more over at Curbed along with a great deal of swift reader reaction and Brownstoner has coverage too.