The city of Sacramento appears ready to clamp down on a workday culinary staple – the food truck.
More than 100 licensed food trucks roam Sacramento every day, serving up tacos, burritos, noodles and ice cream. The trucks are fixtures at construction sites and outside government offices, anywhere hurried folk want a bite on the cheap.
But city officials say some vendors park for hours in quiet neighborhoods and attract loiterers, noise, litter and crime. The City Council is to vote today on an ordinance to limit where food trucks can open shop and for how long.
“We’re not trying to stop these businesses; we’re trying to make business attractive for everybody,” Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy said.
Today’s vote follows more than two years of heated debate over how best to regulate the trucks, which proprietors say cater to a growing market for quick eats in Sacramento. Owners argued that earlier city attempts unfairly singled them out and would have driven them out of business.
The proposed ordinance would generally forbid trucks from operating at night unless they are at least 400 feet from a residential area. It would also bar them from stopping for more than 30 minutes in one spot, whether on a roadside or an industrial parking lot. So every half-hour the trucks would have to find another spot at least 400 feet away.
