Councillor Susan Chapelle has posed a good question about the current business climate for those in the business of mobile food vending.
“Why do we have any restrictions on food trucks?” Chapelle asks The Squamish Chief. “I have no idea.”
The District of Squamish only issues five regular food truck licenses at any given time. An amendment to the regulations has just been adopted to allow mobile vendors to get special event licenses for events permitted by the District of Squamish.
This means more potential opportunities for more vendors who are prepared to get a special event license from the District of Squamish for events approved and permitted by the district.
Chapelle says she wants a lively downtown. The Business Improvement Area also says it wants a lively downtown. According to Chapelle, one way to liven things up is to allow more food trucks to operate.
“Everything is just so bureaucratic,”
she says.
If Chapelle were the lone person making decisions, she’d let the food truck operators set up where they want, when they want and revisit the idea if issues develop from the loosening of the rules.
Chapelle basically wants the market to dictate the success or failure of food
truck operations.
“What could possibly be the worst that could happen?”
This is another rhetorical question with no good answer. Or, even a bad answer.
One potential negative impact is the possibility of a rash of food truck operators pulling business away from permanent restaurants in local buildings. The brick and mortar operations deal with rent and property taxes that mobile operators don’t have to worry about.
Those operating from fixed locations also deal with tables, chairs, dishes and cutlery that aren’t on mobile operator’s list of things that keep them awake at night.
Chapelle’s preference to let the market decide which food vendors survive is an interesting contrast set against the position she and some other Squamish council members have taken on drive-through windows.
Chapelle certainly isn’t an advocate of allowing the market determine how many drive-through windows the community wants or needs. These issues do have some distinct differences, but the similarities are worth mentioning.
Chapelle notes that the food truck experience is a social one, while cruising through a drive-through window isn’t, plus drive-through windows generate significant amounts of greenhouse gasses when long lineups form.
Chapelle’s original question probed the need for restrictions on food trucks. Restrictions ensure there’s a fair
playing field.
In this case, it would be best if our local leaders gave the business community a consistent message. Some regulation applied equally allows for certainty
in business.
Letting food trucks do as they please isn’t fair to the folks doing business in established restaurants and it isn’t fair to customers who need certainty that the food they’re ordering from mobile vendors is prepared in a clean environment by people who won’t serve undercooked chicken burgers.
