Pretty safe bet, since that's what the article says.
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if this had been about LA instead of Ann Arbor, the title might as easily have started with "A French Fry truck," "A Banh Mi truck," "A Po Boy truck," "A Poke Truck" or "A Gyro Truck"
The food truck laws in Michigan in general are pretty annoying. You need to have a commissary kitchen where all the food is actually made in order to be in compliance. Which defeats one of the main points of having a food truck to begin with(not having to rent or own an expensive building)
This reads like a complaint about vaccines because nobody has seen Polio in like a lifetime...
Just as a reminder: Up until the early 20th century, any large city that wasn't home to a Molasses-based catastrophe had at some point burned more or less completely down, usually killing thousands: Chicago, SF, London are well known.
If by "nice things" you mean salmonella and grease fires, then sure.
Not to defend Boulder, specifically, but when thinking about regulations it's really easy to tally up "all" of the costs and benefits without crediting them for the nonexistent costs of the bad things that didn't happen.
> a restaurant fire suppression system shall be required for all cooking operations that produce grease-laden vapors. These systems can be activated automatically or manually to dispense chemicals to suppress the flames of a fire
I.e. it's not "each truck". You can have a food truck that doesn't create that particular fire hazard without an expensive fire suppression system.
Not sure about Michigan, but Florida has commissary co-working type spaces. Show up with your ingredients, cook, clean-up, peace out. Most of the co-working type commissarys are pay as you go (hourly) type deals. It's common amongst Farmer Market vendors.
We have commissary co-working spaces in Georgia too, but they were pretty expensive last time I checked. I think the law here requires that you have a dedicated space that isn't shared.
New York (City) as well, IIRC. Street-side cooking is more akin to heating up already prepared food. San Francisco, too. While it seemingly defeats the purpose, the flip side of the argument is that it is easier to ensure base levels of hygiene.
The article itself, btw, is a pretty nifty use of PostGIS viz.
Edit: Originally had all of California included but it was pointed out that my knowledge was limited to San Francisco as LA does not have the same requirements.
But the other main point of having a food truck is to avoid all sorts of regulations on food safety, hygiene, waste disposal, etc. (which is why they are also known as "roach coaches"). So yes, those ordinances do largely defeat the purpose of food trucks.
> You need to have a commissary kitchen where all the food is actually made in order to be in compliance
Do you have a source for this so I can clarify my understanding? I thought that Chicago was somewhat infamous until recently for being the only major city in the US that didn't allow food trucks to cook on board.
Note that requiring that a truck have a commissary is not the same as mandating that all cooking happen there. The common requirement to have a commissary is so inspectors know where to find trucks, presumably.
What's the motivation behind ordinances like this? I've never spoken to anyone who likes them, so I'm not really sure why cities are so aggressive about it. I assume there must be a large segment of the population who are really bothered by food trucks for some reason, but I genuinely struggle to imagine why
It is for me. Why wouldn't you want a food truck parked outside the neighborhood park? Walk down to the park and pick up some dinner instead of hopping in a car and driving 10 minutes to apple/chilis/etc.
> Why wouldn't you want a food truck parked outside the neighborhood park?
Noise, smell, litter, crowds, extra traffic, taking up space from people who wanted to use the park, fumes from generators or burners... lots of reasons.
> instead of hopping in a car and driving 10 minutes to apple/chilis/etc
I mean these aren’t really the only two options are they, come on.
Same reason why most people don't want restaurants or businesses in their neighborhoods, and why zoning exists in the first place. The slight hit in convenience is usually acceptable so residential streets are free from noise, crowds, traffic, waste etc.
The park here permits a concession trailer (and multiple food trucks during events).
I expect in Ann Arbor that some of the motivation is street parking, of which there is not nearly enough in areas with student houses. And then additionally the disruption of traffic on the narrow residential streets.
The parcels that can have food trucks are near restaurants, so I think they aren't the issue.
I suspect it’s more like, 99% of the population is indifferent, a small number of people care a lot (in this case, it’s probably restaurant owners), and elected officials do what the small number wants because they’re the only ones voicing any sort of opinion. (And they probably donate to campaigns.)
Some people don't like other congregating in front of their stores and not buying anything but the most vocal opponent are restaurants. They feel like by paying substantial money for a restaurant lease, they shouldn't be subject to competition that can operate with far lower costs / standards. Think about if you owned a nice Mexican restaurant and then a taco truck parked outside during your rush hour. They have almost none of the fixed costs that you do and could undercut you pretty easily.
I'm not convinced it's worth regulating their hours/locations, but I do sympathize a bit with the brutal economics of restaurants.
>they shouldn't be subject to competition that can operate with far lower costs / standards.
Of course they should. There is no assurances or guarantees that any business venture is going to be successful.
If you're running a mexican restaurant that goes out of business because of a taco truck, the answer isn't to outlaw taco trucks, it's to make your own restaurant better.
If you can't change your restaurant and you go out of business isn't it your fault for not adapting to customer tastes and preferences, not the taco trucks fault because it was able to satiate customer needs?
A. A clever way of effectively outlawing something without saying as much (because the legislator understands the implications but has cover as they are "merely keeping them out of residential neighborhoods")
B. The unintended consequences of a legislator not understanding the ramifications of their own [well intentioned?] proposal
Standup restaurants have a lot of fixed cost requirements especially with the local health departments. Also there are many local taxes on top of sales tax for restaurants.
Food trucks bypass a lot of this overhead, and it isn't fair to the restaurants. A case of food poisoning can affect a large number of people as well. Lost wages, hospital visits, etc.
A food truck seems completely benign to you and me. But I bet if one decides to park itself right outside your window it can have a dramatic effect on your quality of life.
> I assume there must be a large segment of the population who are really bothered by
You could fill in the blank after 'by' and there will be people who turn up at planning meetings or city council meetings to deliver spittle flecked rants about how it'll be the death of the city.
I feel like a municipality should have to create these maps when proposing legislation, and maintain them on an [annual?] basis
There are so many areas of our lives where its becoming de facto impossible to comply with all the laws/regulations without devoting an unreasonable amount of time/resources towards compliance
They'd probably benefit by making it easier to enforce, so I agree that they should absolutely do this. This assumes easy enforcement is what they are looking for.
I don't really get why they wouldn't want food trucks to be near residential parks and such. I'm also curious if this would effectively ban residential area ice cream trucks.
45 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 78.8 ms ] thread- QGIS, for quick sandboxing and ad hoc visualization - PostGIS, for the actual parcel/zone computations - ogr2ogr, for inserting Shapefile data into PostGIS
Just as a reminder: Up until the early 20th century, any large city that wasn't home to a Molasses-based catastrophe had at some point burned more or less completely down, usually killing thousands: Chicago, SF, London are well known.
Not to defend Boulder, specifically, but when thinking about regulations it's really easy to tally up "all" of the costs and benefits without crediting them for the nonexistent costs of the bad things that didn't happen.
> a restaurant fire suppression system shall be required for all cooking operations that produce grease-laden vapors. These systems can be activated automatically or manually to dispense chemicals to suppress the flames of a fire
I.e. it's not "each truck". You can have a food truck that doesn't create that particular fire hazard without an expensive fire suppression system.
The article itself, btw, is a pretty nifty use of PostGIS viz.
Edit: Originally had all of California included but it was pointed out that my knowledge was limited to San Francisco as LA does not have the same requirements.
Do you have a source for this so I can clarify my understanding? I thought that Chicago was somewhat infamous until recently for being the only major city in the US that didn't allow food trucks to cook on board.
Note that requiring that a truck have a commissary is not the same as mandating that all cooking happen there. The common requirement to have a commissary is so inspectors know where to find trucks, presumably.
Noise, smell, litter, crowds, extra traffic, taking up space from people who wanted to use the park, fumes from generators or burners... lots of reasons.
> instead of hopping in a car and driving 10 minutes to apple/chilis/etc
I mean these aren’t really the only two options are they, come on.
I expect in Ann Arbor that some of the motivation is street parking, of which there is not nearly enough in areas with student houses. And then additionally the disruption of traffic on the narrow residential streets.
The parcels that can have food trucks are near restaurants, so I think they aren't the issue.
I'm not convinced it's worth regulating their hours/locations, but I do sympathize a bit with the brutal economics of restaurants.
Of course they should. There is no assurances or guarantees that any business venture is going to be successful.
If you're running a mexican restaurant that goes out of business because of a taco truck, the answer isn't to outlaw taco trucks, it's to make your own restaurant better.
If you can't change your restaurant and you go out of business isn't it your fault for not adapting to customer tastes and preferences, not the taco trucks fault because it was able to satiate customer needs?
A. A clever way of effectively outlawing something without saying as much (because the legislator understands the implications but has cover as they are "merely keeping them out of residential neighborhoods")
B. The unintended consequences of a legislator not understanding the ramifications of their own [well intentioned?] proposal
Food trucks bypass a lot of this overhead, and it isn't fair to the restaurants. A case of food poisoning can affect a large number of people as well. Lost wages, hospital visits, etc.
You could fill in the blank after 'by' and there will be people who turn up at planning meetings or city council meetings to deliver spittle flecked rants about how it'll be the death of the city.
There are so many areas of our lives where its becoming de facto impossible to comply with all the laws/regulations without devoting an unreasonable amount of time/resources towards compliance