ST. LOUIS – Cabbies will have to find another way to satisfy passengers now that the St. Louis Taxicab Commission has banned porn on the job.

Commission Chairman Lou Hamilton got tough on Monday, issuing a “directors rule” that provides penalties including a fine of $100 and potential forfeiture of a cabbie’s hack license if he or she is caught playing adult videos inside a licensed vehicle. A director’s rule doesn’t require approval by the commission but nevertheless carries the force of a formal regulation.

“Even without a passenger present in the car, they may not operate a video player or any kind of device that is playing pornographic or other objectionable material,” Hamilton said, noting that displaying pornography violates the commission’s general rules about behavior and conduct.

Hamilton said he was inspired to get specific about porn after a local resident complained about an accidental encounter with offensive material. The woman said she stopped her car at an intersection, only to be horrified by a video playing on a drop-down screen inside the cab in front of her. The video appears to have been intended for a male passenger’s amusement.

“It was all women in different situations touching themselves and, you know, nudity,” the woman, identified only as Renee, told KMOX News in mid-June. “There might have been a G-string, but other than that, no clothes.

“So my concern is — well, first of all, I didn’t really want to see it — but then I started thinking ‘what if I had a child in the car with me?’” she said. “I just can’t imagine how I would explain that to a child in the vehicle.”

Hamilton told KMOX that Harris Cabs, the owner of the taxi in question, investigated and determined the offending material was a music video, not pornography.