Follow That Story: Forward Movement on Food Trucks (Finally)
By Shane Smith • May 28th, 2010 • Category: Featured, News
For over a year, JCI has been following the ordeal of local food truck vendors, who have asked the council to change a law that prevents their trucks from remaining in a given location for more than 20 minutes during a four-hour period; some have complained that the law is obscure and selectively enforced. For months, plans to change the ordinance went nowhere, but now the tide seems to be turning.
Since a February 2009 request from longtime food truck vendors working near New Jersey City University, food truck vendors have come to a number of council meetings, an ordinance to fix the problem was drafted but never introduced, an investigation was launched against now-retired health department official Joseph Castagna for potentially issuing illegal food vendor permits and the city’s promises to fix the problem in a timely fashion have been broken.
A council subcommittee made up of Council President Peter Brennan, Ward D councilman Bill Gaughan and Ward E councilman Steven Fulop was created last October and charged with drafting an ordinance that both eases the burden on the food truck vendors and creates a policy for handling the potentially large number of excess food permits currently out in the city. As of the January 13 meeting, the subcommittee had not met. Fulop told city attorney Bill Matsikoudis at that meeting that there has been no progress because of “a lack of clarity” on the number of potentially illegal food vendor licenses. Matsikoudis responded that he thought “there [had] been some type of determination” made about the number of illegal licenses, and said he would get an update to the council members.
After Christine McDaniel of the Louisiana Spice Truck asked the council at the May 12 meeting for a status update on the revised ordinance, Matsikoudis again said he would find out what he could about the number of outstanding permits. In a May 20 letter to the council, Matsikoudis confirms that the Division of Health has issued “approximately 400″ licenses, which “exceed[s] the maximum number in the existing ordinance.”
The Law Department, with input from several other city agencies, has also created a proposed draft of how to rework the ordinance. The proposal, which is now in the City Council’s hands to modify as it sees fit, would extend the time limit on food trucks to three hours during a four-hour period. It would also add a number of health precautions, following the January raid on the Banana Leaf truck and its owners’ Journal Square home, which found a bevy of code violations that led to the truck’s permit being revoked. And it would tack on a new provision that a food truck cannot operate within 50 feet of any other food truck, in addition to the already standing ban on operating within 300 feet of a restaurant.
“Now, with a draft ordinance presented for consideration, an estimate of the number of active licenses outstanding, and the promise that a copy of the Division of Health’s records will soon be furnished by the Prosecutor’s Office,” Matsikoudis writes, “there should be no further obstacles to the council’s deliberations on the proposed amendments to the Itinerant Catering Ordinance.”
Matsikoudis also recommends that the city honor any requests by itinerant vendor licensees to renew their licenses, some of which expire on June 30. As assistant city attorney Joanne Monahan explained at the May 24 council caucus, “it doesn’t appear to be the fault of any vendor” that they may have been issued an illegal license.
It was accordingly decided at the caucus that the subcommittee would begin to meet again to draft a new ordinance. However, the membership of the subcommittee now appears to be in question.
On Monday, Brennan indicated that Fulop and Ward B councilman David Donnelly are members of the committee. Fulop tells JCI that he intends to call a meeting of the committee “right after Memorial Day” although he acknowledged that its membership “is in flux.”
Donnelly, who was absent from Monday’s caucus because it was the day after his wedding, had not previously been a member of the committee, and he says that he has not yet been asked to join it. However, he indicated that he is “willing to help out in any way.”
“It’s certainly something that needs to be straightened out,” Donnelly said.
Memo RE: Food Truck Law Changes
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Shane Smith is the managing editor of Jersey City Independent.
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