A Minute with the Mayor on Food Truck Ordinance
April 25th, 2023 by Joe Burgess
“First, let me be clear in saying that I support mobile vendors. I think they bring variety, culture, convenience and many other positive aspects. Our local vendors (in my experience) are all great people providing a service to our communities. We want to encourage that, but also set guidelines for operating in the City of Monticello. This will allow vendors and property owners as well as City or State entities responsible for the safety of our public, to know the rules as to when, where and how food trucks operate.
The food truck ordinance has been discussed by both the Fire Marshal as well as the planning commission for quite some time and for multiple reasons. The ordinance the council received (with a few modifications) is based on the ordinances of several other towns within our state. The ordinance on the agenda is a starting point, not a destination, for the discussion of rules and regulations.
However, there are a few concerns and I will address them from my perspective and experiences. For those local business owners or citizens who have approached the city for quite some time requesting some regulation on mobile vendors, it is incumbent upon them to come to the Council meeting and express their respective concerns in areas they feel need to be addressed. I will not forward their concerns in this correspondence as they are, or may be, different than my own.
My personal concerns are as follows:
Safety of the Community-
As City Government, we have an obligation to ensure that any one conducting business in our town is safe and reputable. Healthcare, Food and Financial services being at the top of the list. Our citizens deserve for us to ensure that the food they buy is safe and should they get seriously ill from eating anywhere, that there is a mechanism to identify and address the supplier of the food to prevent more of the public from becoming ill. Should our local hospital get inundated with food poisoning cases and it be reported to the City, I for one do not want to be the person who has to say “We have no idea who those people were who sold the food from that truck”.
Additionally, random food trucks, not our “normal” food truck operators, pass through our town often. One instance in particular that I am familiar with was passing from Mississippi, headed to West Arkansas and elected to stop and sell some food on a local parking lot. Nice people I am sure, but I am also aware that the crime of identity theft continues to plague law enforcement and these vendors were taking debit card purchases using a Square device on a mobile phone. One common method of identity theft is to take a photo of a customers debit card front/ back during the course of a transaction using a mobile device. I’m not aware of any instances where this happened with this food truck and it is a good thing, because we don’t have a clue who those people are nor how to track them down.
Fire and Safety Concerns are paramount, but I will defer those matters to the Fire Chief or Fire Marshal during the course of the discussions concerning the ordinance moving forward.
Use of private property or City of Monticello property-
The City should be clear as to when and where food trucks can operate. Setting rules not only creates clarity for the vendor coming to town, but it ensures that everyone is treated equally, has equal access to participate and no special treatment is given to one vendor over another, especially when it comes to allowing some to set up and others not. Having no guidelines will eventually create inconsistency and confusion on what is allowed and what isn’t.
Vendors deserve to know what public areas they can access, under what circumstances and what (if any) amenities (electrical, trash receptacles, etc) are available for them at these locations.
This Ordinance, or a variance thereof, should have a criteria that the owner of the property CONSENTS to the food truck being on their land. We have had instances where food trucks just pass through town and set up for a few hours on others property without permission and then leave. There is a concern for liability for the property owners in instances like this.
I love food trucks, but no one at my house outside of my 15 year old son wants them selling tacos on the vacant lot by our home at 2:00 a.m. Luckily we haven’t had this dilemma at my house yet. Nonetheless, lets don’t wait until it’s a problem until we draft a solution that sets directives for our City employees to carry out.
Compliance with local taxes
Our local vendors, citizens and businesses contribute to Monticello’s One Cent Sales Tax. I believe that some vendors may not be aware of this tax that we as residents all contribute to. If our citizens have to pay this tax, if possible, then out of town vendors should too. By creating an ordinance, a copy of the ordinance can be provided to the vendor so they can review what’s expected of them as it relates to this.
Encourage Business
By requiring permitting of vendors, we not only can be more consistent with our rules and guidelines and limit confusion, but we can also develop a list of vendors so that moving forward as our town promotes festivals, activities on the square, with our University, etc., we can SHARE our vendors lists with other cities, towns and entities to promote them for not just our town’s events, but the events of other localities or entities we interact with.
While these are a few points that need to be addressed, I look forward to hearing all viewpoints on this matter and watching our town and council navigate this issue with the common good of all of our citizens in mind.
I have reached out to our own Ryan Copico for his valuable insight and inout into this topic and look forward to the discussions to follow.”
