Pokemon Go sparks side business Lyft driver
COLMA, Calif. -- The number of Pokemon Go downloads now almost rivals the number of registered voters in California, and the augmented reality search game has sparked some side businesses.
Forrest Diddams is no ordinary Lyft driver. When he's logged off of the ride hailing app, he does another sort of driving. He's a Pokemon driver, and he makes $27 to $50 an hour.
"During the week it's better than Lyft," he said.
His car is equipped with all the right chargers and he knows where the Pokemon are hiding. "Libraries," he said.
"I'll find librarians getting upset because of all the noise and whatnot," Diddams said.
And that's not the only quiet spot where they're hiding.
"Cemeteries, as a rule," Diddams said.
And that's where things get interesting. It's not that the cemeteries don't want more visitors. These are, after all, places filled with history. But when the visitors are busy chasing Pokemons, it can create other problems.
"Of course what we don't want is to have people inundating the cemetery and certainly interrupting funerals or visitors," said Monica Williams, director of cemeteries at Holy Cross.
The Holy Cross Cemetery had a meeting about it after players started showing up at all hours of the day.
"We haven't had any problem with our visitors, and I am so happy about that, but we do want to be careful. There are cemeteries throughout the country that have had to say no, that this is a non-gaming area," Williams said.
They say if you must play there, be respectful, and try to stay on the main paths. Of course, there are lots of other places to catch Pokemon, like the side of the road.
"They realize that there's a very rare Pokemon nearby that they didn't know and they'll say, 'Stop the car. Stop the car. I need to get out,' and they'll just burst out of the car," Diddams said.
Diddams says his business is growing, but he's not counting on anything.
"A huge surge of people are going to get their fix of Pokemon and then I think it'll be dead," Diddams said.
