The San Diego Regional Airport Authority is coming under fire over their checklist for inspecting cab drivers and their cars. The organization is responsible for determining which cab drivers are fit and safe to drive customers from the airport to hotels or other destinations in the San Diego area. However, the Airport Authority’s methods for screening drivers have been described as prejudiced, discriminatory, and even dehumanizing.

How come? According to a report from Fox News, the criticism for the Airport Authority has come because their checklist for assessing drivers and their cars does not just include items like proof of insurance and functioning brakes, but also has a section for body odor.

Indeed, inspectors at the San Diego Regional Airport are actively instructed to smell cab drivers and rate them on their odor. There is a separate section for the odors on the interior of the car. If inspectors see fit, they can demand that taxi drivers go home to shower or change clothes before returning to the airport to accept new fares.

The Airport Authority claims that the policy has been in place for years because odors can greatly influence the comfort and well-being of customers. The United Taxi Workers of San Diego, on the other hand, San Diego’s cab driver union, says that the body odor test is a sign of discrimination and a perpetuation of stereotypes. The vast majority of cab drivers in the San Diego area are immigrants, and the city’s taxi driver union feels that the body odor test supports a belief that foreigners smell worse than non-immigrants.

They have a point: other American cities do not assess their cab drivers based on body odor. While cities like Chicago and New York do require their drivers to be clean and neat, there is no checklist item on their inspection forms that implies that cab drivers are inherently smelly.