NEW ORLEANS — After working for months to pass legislation that would make it easier for food trucks to operate, City Councilwoman Stacy Head said Thursday she has decided to let Mayor Mitch Landrieu take the lead.

Landrieu unexpectedly vetoed an ordinance early this month that would have loosened several of the restrictions governing when and where the vendors can sell their street food. The council could have voted Thursday to override the veto, but instead deferred action.

That’s because the Landrieu administration is in the process of writing its own legislation to deal with the food truck fleet, Head said. The draft ordinance largely mirrors the one the mayor blocked, but is a bit of an improvement, Head said.

Head has long believed the city’s food truck regulations are outdated, which prompted her efforts to begin writing new legislation months ago. Head said Thursday it was “highly unlikely” she could get the five votes needed to override the mayor’s veto, which is why the council did not vote on the issue during its regular meting.

“My goal is to keep this moving forward which is why I’ll continue to defer (a vote),” Head said.

In April, the council voted 6-1 to relax some laws for food truck operators while adding a handful of new requirements and allowing another 75 trucks to operate for one year as part of a pilot program.

Landrieu, however, said he was compelled to block the law because it did not appear able to withstand legal challenges.

The vetoed ordinance would have expanded the areas where food trucks could operate in the Central Business District, allowed food trucks to stay in one spot for up to four hours and require trucks to have access to restrooms near where they parked.

The ordinance also would have reduced the allowable distance between a food truck and an existing restaurant. Right now, city law prohibits food trucks from parking closer than 600 feet. The ordinance the council passed reduced that distance to 200 feet, but there were questions during debate about whether the distance requirement was constitutional. That aspect appeared to be at the heart of Landrieu’s veto.

According to a May 9th email exchange among Head; Eric Granderson, Landrieu’s director of local government affairs; and Scott Hutcheson, the mayor’s adviser on the cultural economy, the administration has proposed several changes, including removing the buffer zone and bathroom requirement, reducing the $600 permit fee, and adding the ability for food trucks to get a “franchise agreement” that would allow them to operate in prohibited areas, except for the French Quarter.

Granderson said “the final number of permits is still in discussion” and that the administration is considering adding language that would set automatic incremental increases for the number of permits.

Head said she expects the administration’s new ordinance to be ready early next month. “The ball is in his (Landrieu’s) court,” she said.

http://theadvocate.com/news/5995456-123/head-defers-to-landrieu-in

Yummy[Photo Credit: David Grunfeld / Times-Picayune]

Grazing at the Fest – May 2-5 - Yes, it’s going to be wet and muddy at the Fair Grounds this weekend, but that only will make you appreciate Prejean’s pheasant, quail and andouille gumbo so much more. If you’re hitting up the New Orleans Jazz Fest’s second weekend – rain or shine – take this challenge: Eat one dish you’ve never tried before. My suggestion: the couscous with sweet yogurt and dried fruit by Gambian Foods at Congo Square. It feels like an antidote to all the butter-rich, cream-heavy fest foods.

Purloo brunch – May 5 - The popular pop-up by Ryan Hughes, chef of the soon-to-come Purloo restaurant at the new Southern Food and Beverage Museum, will hold a Sunday brunch from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Creole Gardens Guest House and Inn, 1415 Prytania St. Jazz pianist/vocalist Mitch Woods will perform. Reservations: 504.430.1840 or nolapurloo@gmail.com.

“Rolling Through” food truck gatherings – Tuesdays, from May 7 through June 25 – City officials are still grappling over how to regulate food trucks, but that hasn’t made the mobile meal-sellers any less popular. A new series of food truck gatherings kicks off Tuesday, May 7, at Bayou Treme Center, 2541 Bayou Road. The series, organized by My House NOLA, will continue on Tuesdays through June 25 at various locations throughout the city. Events take place from 5 to 9 p.m. A complete list of dates and trucks is on the event’s Facebook page. Trucks you’ll find at the May 7 gathering include: Nola Girl, La Cocinita, Empanada Intifada, Grilling Shelling, Brigade Coffee, Dat Dog Express, NOLA Pie Guy, Rue Chow, Frencheeze and Beignet Roule.

Sippin’ In Seersucker – May 10 – More than a dozen restaurants are signed for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s sartorial-minded fundraiser, Sippin’ in Seersucker. The event takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Shops at Canal Place. Some of the participating restaurants include: Chiba, Cleaver & Co., Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse, The Grill Room at the Windsor Court Hotel, Liberty’s Kitchen, Maple Street Café, Pralines by Jean, Root and Tivoli & Lee at Hotel Modern, among others. Tickets are $25 for museum members, $40 for nonmembers before May 10, and $30 for members and $50 for nonmembers at the door. Details: 504.539.9650 or at the museum’s store.

Filipino Al Fresceaux – May 11 – If you haven’t tried Milkfish, the fabulous Filipino pop-up by Cristina Quackenbush, here’s another opportunity to taste her cooking. She will be the featured chef at the next Al Fresceaux dinner club. The event includes a five-course meal with wine pairings and cocktails. As with many of these under-the-radar supper events, the location is not announced in advance. Cost is
 $60 per person. Details: email eat@alfresceauxnola.com.

Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo – May 17-19 – The Bayou St. John fun-fest has rounded up more than 20 restaurants to feed the crowd. Not to be missed is Ralph’s on the Park’s upscale take on yaka mein with beef brisket and bucatini pasta.

http://www.nola.com/dining/index.ssf/2013/05/food_truck_rallies_pop-up_dinn.html

NEW ORLEANS - Mayor Mitch Landrieu has vetoed an ordinance allowing for an expansion of food trucks in the city, telling City Council members that he and his staff have concerns about the legality of the ordinance.

In his veto letter, the Mayor seems to refer to various amendments to the ordinance, passed April 19, which were publically questioned by Council President Stacy Head and others on the council.  Those include requirements dealing with available restrooms near food truck locations.

“Both the author of the ordinance and its principal proponent have publically stated their belief that elements of the adopted ordinance as amended may be unconstitutional,” said the Mayor.

The ordinance as approved by the council in a 6-1 vote expanded the number of food truck permits, but required vendors seek written permission from the nearest business with a restroom available for their customers.  The council did pass an exemption for vendors who can demonstrate that there is no commercial or public bathroom available within 300 feet.

Landrieu further said that the ordinance would likely face a court challenge.

“Further, the City Attorney has raised Equal Protection concerns and opined that this ordinance would not withstand a legal challenge.  It would be unwise to sign this ordinance into law in its current form when it appears certain that it will be invalidated by the court.”

The mayor ended his letter by saying he supports efforts by Head and the City Council to revisit the food truck expansion idea.

“Accordingly, I have directed my staff to work with the Council to immediately address this issue and develop changes which will result in mobile food vending laws which are legal, fair, enforceable and best serve the industry and the people of New Orleans.”

http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Mayor-Landrieu-vetoes-food-truck-ordinance-citing-legal-concerns-205650971.html

The lengthy and often brutal battle over a rewrite of the regulations governing food trucks in the city saw a victory for the mobilized on Thursday. The New Orleans City Council passed a reform measure that allows more food trucks to take the streets, and gives them more room to roam.

But there was some heat in the mobile kitchen, as Councilwoman Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson stood in opposition to the legislation crafted by her at-large colleague Stacy Head.

The proposed pilot program, first floated months ago by Head, would add 75 new food truck permits and extensively update a law drafted back in the 1950s. But even Head had now idea how extensive that update that was going to be.

The changes include a significantly expanded market for potential food truck vendors, allowing the number of permits for mobile restos to increase to 200 from their current 100.

The ordinance will also open up parts of the Biomedical District, the Treme, and the CBD as fair game for food truck fare. However, the revision includes the areas in the French Quarter and Frenchmen Street, and the CBD between Poydras St. and Howard Ave. in the no-food-truck zone.

With many food truck association members, the truck owners themselves, as well as current and former Louisiana Restaurant Association (LRA) members, and attorneys in attendance at the meeting, the discussion about Head’s updates went through a series of submitted amendments and still more on-the-spot amendments  the final version of the bill that passed. In all, the City Council took 11 votes on the legislation.

Among the sucessful amendments were a provision that delineated specific fines and forfeiture of permit for certain violations of the updated code. A series of guidelines on bathrooms included requirements that trucks cannot be 200 feet near another operating brick-and-mortar establishment without prior approval. Vendors also required to display the permit number on their trucks.

 Some of the attending owners and vendors took time to speak, while others simply ceded their time to New Orleans Food Truck Association representatives and attorneys. One food truck vendor who did speak to the Council directly was Theresa Galli of Fat Falafel. Fat Falafel operates in a number of areas, including on Oretha Castley Blvd., which is still a re-emerging neighborhood and may not offer all the requirement dictated by the new law. Even worse for the food trucks, a restaurant could come into the neighborhood, piggy-back on their success, and kick the trucks out, Galli said.

 ”You’re asking us to be the forefront in revitalizing these neighborhoods,” Galli said. ”But when the restaurants move in, we have to go and find a new clientele?”

 Similar arguments were also made that a number of the proposed restrictions would prevent these vendors from operating in a number of the, “Food Deserts,” that exist in the city. Others said most food trucks have successfully operated in residential areas up to now. Even though they operatied without the bathroom requirement as the law currently allows, they doled out grub without issue.

 Attorney Andrew Legrand, who represents the Food Truck Coalition, pointed out that this evidence shows how unnecessary and burdensome these restrictions would be. The only reason he and his clients can see for them is to establish economic protection from restaurants who fear the competition.

 ”What else is it designed to do?” Legrand asked. “Has anyone not with the LRA called for this?”

 Still, the “potty” amendment went through, as did the minimum distance restriction Legrand spoke of (albeit with the newly reduced 200-foot requirement).

More surprising than the public comments and outcries were the number of critiques and even flat-out snipes exchanged by many on the Council dais. President Head called to question why some members had sent in their amendments as late as 10 p.m. the night before, an action that prevented all parties from being properly prepared for debate.

One of the final hurdles the legislation tackled was a proposed non-severability clause, offered up by Clarkson. Had this amendment passed, the laws woud’ve been thrown out if any court rejected or nullified any part of the ordinance as it passed. Ultimately, the courts will not have the right to bring the new laws to a halt, as the provision was defeated.

The final, amended ordinance passed by a vote of 6-1, with Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell casting the sole no vote.

http://www.noladefender.com/content/tr23uc56kin

The New Orleans City Council passed new rules for food trucks Thursday.

As many as 75 more food trucks will be allowed to work in the city but their permits will only be good for one year.

They have to operate at least 200 feet from restaurants and are prohibited in the French Quarter, CBD and parts of Frenchmen Street.

The trucks will be allowed to park in one area for four hours.

“After many months of working with my colleagues on the Council, the Food Truck Coalition, small business development organizations, the Louisiana Restaurant Association, the State Department of Health and Hospitals, and others, I am pleased that we have finally made some long-overdue updates to the City’s mobile vending laws.” Council President Stacy Head said.

Read more: http://wgno.com/2013/04/18/council-passes-food-truck-changes/#ixzz2R3ZV7Cz2

http://wgno.com/2013/04/18/council-passes-food-truck-changes/#axzz2R3Y88F3c

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After months of debate and redrafting, New Orleans City Council passed a revised food truck ordinance that would increase the availability of permits and allow more trucks in New Orleans.

Following a months-long drive led by council president Stacy Head, council voted 6-1 to approve the drafted-in-progress ordinance. (District D council member Cynthia Hedge-Morrell was the sole nay vote.)

Council members argued over several last-minute amendments to the proposed ordinance, including two concerning bathrooms.

“This has been the concern not just of (the Louisiana Restaurant Association). This came from my public health people — not from the city, but from my access to a whole arena of public health people,” said Clarkson, adding that she has received public health guidance from “people who have been engaged in public health my whole life.”

Alex del Castillo, who runs Taceaux Loceaux, said he has “managed not to soil myself” in the time he has spent prepping and serving from his truck. “Why is it suddenly important now?” he asked. “What are you fixing? Has there been a spate of illnesses from truck owners?”

Head also noted that a letter, requested by Clarkson, from the state Department of Health and Hospitals said the department will continue “aggressive” enforcement of health codes, and it made no mention of a bathroom requirement.

Rachel Billow, president of the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition and owner of La Cocinita food truck, said there “haven’t been any issues thus far with there not being a restroom requirement,” noting that the current law as written has no requirement.

“Because this is a pilot program we can use this time to learn,” she said. “If we have restrictions in place we’re not going to learn whether they’re doing to be a problem. … The best solution would be to wait until it becomes a problem.”

The council adopted the amendment for trucks to operate within 300 feet of an available restroom, though Head admitted it was to accommodate unfounded complaints in her “earnest attempts to accommodate” them, “particularly from the LRA.”

“Even though frankly I think it is silly,” she said. “Nevertheless I have tried to accommodate these concerns. I wasn’t aware it a was an issue until yesterday.”

A second amendment related to bathrooms also passed, though with several amendments made to it:
Clarkson proposed that food truck vendors have written permission from a business within 300 feet from where a food truck operates, though council members agreed that a truck can be exempt if it can “demonstrate” there is no bathroom (e.g. in an under-served neighborhood). Clarkson introduced an amendment requiring trucks to carry keys to businesses with bathrooms, but she scrapped it.

Other approved amendments include a rule prohibiting trucks from operating in front of a “residential structure” (as opposed to an entire residential zoned neighborhood, which would have excluded trucks from operating in front of neighborhood bars that regularly invite trucks). Trucks also must display their permit number.

The proximity requirement to prevent trucks from operating within 200 feet of a brick-and-mortar restaurant also passed, unless trucks have a written waiver from the restaurant. New permits for trucks will be capped at 75.

The new ordinance will take effect Jan. 1, 2014.

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2013/04/18/food-truck-ordinance-passes-in-new-orleans-city-council

NEW ORLEANS - After nearly two hours of often-dizzying debate, the New Orleans City Council voted 6-1 to allow an expansion of food trucks throughout the city, with discussion of customer access to restrooms dominating much of the debate.

District D council member Cynthia Hedge-Morrell voted against the ordinance.

At the start of the meeting, Council President Stacy Head, sponsor of the ordinance, seemed visibly irritated at amendments she said she received as late as 10 p.m. Wednesday night, several weeks after the food truck issue first came before the council.

Much of the debate Thursday centered on those amendments, with council members themselves seemingly confused by amendments to the amendments, which brought laughter from some in the audience.

A key portion of debate focused on customer access to restrooms, with council members finally settling on amendments that would require vendors seek written permission from the nearest business with a restroom available for their customers.  But the council passed an exemption for vendors who can demonstrate that there is no commercial or public bathroom available within 300 feet.    An attempt by Council Vice President Jackie Clarkson to require vendors secure a key to the restrooms failed.

Head and supporters of the food truck expansion showed their displeasure at what the Council President at one point called the “onerous” restroom requirements.

“Many of the cities that were listed (in public comments) as having bathroom requirements were less onerous and have time limit requirements in place,” Head said, asking why there was a need for bathroom access for vendors in place as little as two hours.

“I added a bathroom requirement…even though I think it’s silly,” Head said.

Council members agreed to cap the number of new food truck permits at 75, and to prohibit food trucks in front of residential structures.  The council also passed an amendment to the ordinance which will prohibit food trucks within 200 feet of a restaurant during the restaurant’s open hours.  The current law called for that limit to be 600 feet.

Another amendment also called for vendors to be required to post their permits within public view.

http://www.wwltv.com/news/Restroom-debate-bogs-down-City-Council-vote-on-food-truck-expansion-203652021.html

NEW ORLEANS — After months of discussion, the New Orleans City Council voted Thursday to approve a new set of laws that govern food trucks and a yearlong pilot program that will allow more of them to operate in the city.

The council voted 6-1 to approve the ordinance after going back and forth for nearly two hours about amending amendments during the drawn-out and, at times, confusing debate. District D Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell was the lone dissenter.

The discussion centered on a half-dozen amendments to Council President Stacy Head’s proposed ordinance that would loosen existing food-truck laws and increase the number of permits by 75.

Head has said the 50-year-old laws that regulate food trucks need to be updated since the industry has changed post-Katrina.

While Head submitted two of the amendments, Council Vice President Jackie Clarkson added four more, something Head said was done late Wednesday night, leaving little time for review.

Clarkson’s amendments largely focused on access to rest rooms and the distance from which food trucks can park from brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Ultimately the council changed all but two of the amendments.

One of Head’s amendments, which the council unanimously approved, said that any food-truck operator “must be able to demonstrate authorized access to a rest room within a reasonable distance” of that truck’s location.

Head said that amendment was in response to concerns from the Louisiana Restaurant Association, and she submitted it even though she thought it was “silly” since other vendors do not have to be located near rest rooms.

Ultimately, though, Head’s amendment, while approved, was superseded by one of Clarkson’s amendments.

That change requires a food-truck operator to be located within 300 feet of a public or private rest room and have proof that customers can use those facilities, unless that operator can prove that there is no rest room within 300 feet of where the truck will park.

Additionally, there is no need to worry about rest room locations if the truck will be parked at one location fewer than two hours.

That amendment passed 5-2, with Head and District E Councilman James Gray voting against it.

Head’s and Gray’s concerns about putting too many restrictions on the trucks during the pilot period were echoed by those who run food trucks.

“If we have restrictions in place, we’re not going to learn whether they’re doing to be a problem,” said Rachel Billow, the operator of La Cochinita and president of the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition. “The best solution would be to wait until it becomes a problem.”

Taceaux Loceaux operator Alex del Castillo agreed and said he was not sure why there needed to be a rest-room requirement. He noted that he had “managed not to soil myself” while working in his truck.

“Why is it suddenly important now?” he said. “What are you fixing?”

The distance that trucks must part from restaurants has been a major point of contention among the council, food-truck operators and restaurateurs during the months-long process to get the proposed food-truck legislation to the council for a vote.

Previous incarnations of the ordinance Head introduced would have allowed food trucks to park as close as 50 feet to restaurants. Right now, city law prohibits a food truck from parking 600 feet from a business.

One of Clarkson’s amendments would have set that distance at 300 feet, unless a restaurant operator gives written permission for the park to truck in front of his or her business. District B Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell suggested reducing that distance to 200 feet.

Clarkson, Hedge-Morrell and District C Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer voted against Cantrell’s amendment to Head’s initial amendment.

Ultimately, the 200-foot buffer passed 6-1, with Gray voting against it.

While the majority of the discussion about amending amendments was sometimes perplexing, perhaps the most baffling was what happened to Clarkson’s amendment that would have ended the pilot program if a court found any aspect of it to be against the law.

Gray instead suggested doing away with Clarkson’s wording and replacing it with language that would require the council to take action within 30 days of a court finding any provision “invalid.”

That, in turn, makes the council legally liable to make changes within a month of any court action. Still, the amended amendment passed 5-2, with Hedge-Morrell and Clarkson voting against it.

Amendments by Head and Clarkson to set fines, stop trucks from operating near structures used only for residential purposes and require permits to be displayed passed unanimously and with little discussion.

The new ordinance prohibits food trucks from operating in the French Quarter, which is already off limits, and the area of the Central Business District, with the boundaries including the Mississippi River, Rampart Street, Esplanade Avenue and Howard Avenue and Andrew Higgins Drive. Also off limits to the trucks is Frenchmen Street between Esplanade Avenue and Royal Street.

Permits for food trucks will cost $600 a year. When a food-truck operator applies for a permit, he or she must have commercial general liability insurance coverage of no less than $500,000.

http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/neworleansnews/5747588-123/no-city-council-approves-new

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City Council President Stacy Head’s long-discussed legislation to reform the code governing permitting and operations for vendor food trucks has been on the legislative agenda for some time now – being passed from committee, back to the drawing board for reintroduction, and then returned to committee. Now, the full City Council’s final vote on the food truck ordinance could take place as early as tomorrow.

Head’s original legislation simply sought to update the laws drafted back in the 1950′s. It has been more than two months since that Council Committee meeting, and even Council President Head has commented before that she never saw these changes inciting such a debate, which have lead to hours of committee discussions, public comments and town hall meetings on the subject.

Council members Jackie Clarkson and District B’s Latoya Cantrell have raised constituents’ concerns about proximity to currently established businesses (which has been at the heart of the mobile vs. brick-and-mortar clash). The current regulations prevent most of the mobile units from being with-in 600 feet of a restaurant or competing enterprise, while new legislation would reduce to 100 feet, potentially.

Also brought up by some members of the Economic Development Committee was the idea of expanding the number of permits allowed, designating certain spots in the city as “go” and “no-go,” and even setting standard aesthetic criteria for the vendors in question. Many of these items have been considered and added, and those that haven’t could see a last stand as the legislation goes to vote on the Council floor.

Opponents of the changes have claimed that restaurants are not only ones who will be affected by seeing a loss on their bottom line to the mobile vendors. Lead by the Louisiana Restaurant Association, the opposition believes a food truck’s presence will impede traffic in the city, cause crowd control issues that may ward off customers to other brick-and-mortar establishments (aside from restaurants), and even increase crime. On top of that, opponents are also concerned that the trucks themselves will make neighborhood looks aesthetically unpleasing.

But the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition recently released some figures that allege the number of pro-food truck comments the Council has received since this debate started outpaces the negative by a margin of three-to-one.

“Numbers like these show the broad support that New Orleans’ food trucks enjoy,” said attorney Andrew Legrand, who represents the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition. “Any city council opposition to reforming the city’s food truck laws has to be a response to special interests or heavy hitters.”

A release issued today does not specify the total number of responses the Food Truck Coalition received from their Freedom of Information Request, but it does say that the food truck laws in New Orleans remain an archaic and burdensome interference to these local businesses, and even calls a comparison between that interference and deliberate unfair business protection practices by government (referencing a 5th District Court of Appeals decision, between Louisiana funeral homes and a group of monks facing jail for attempting to sell some caskets they made—I’m not making this up).

“New Orleans’ 600-foot proximity restriction exists for one and only one reason,” said the Coalition’s statement, “to protect brick-and-mortar restaurants from food truck competition… It’s time for the New Orleans City Council to listen to its constituents and the Courts, scrap its protectionist approach to regulation, and pass laws that make it easier for food trucks to operate.”

The Food Truck Coalition has come out in support of some the proposed additions to Head’s original legislation—which include carrying sufficient liability insurance, providing proper trash receptacles and picking up of trash, and the additional permitting fees for approved vendors.

Tomorrow’s regular meeting, where a Council vote could take place, is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at City Hall.

http://www.noladefender.com/content/food-tru23ck-ordin56ance-vote-could-come-thursday-city-council-meeting

La Cocinita [Photo: Facebook]

If you fell into a state of suspended animation last July and napped through the ensuing seven months of news about food truck regulation in New Orleans, we have great news: you haven’t really missed anything. The push to either regulate or deregulate mobile vendors is still ongoing, in the chambers of City Hall, on the blocks around Oretha Castle Haley and St. Claude, and among some obstinate business people in the CBD.

After finding themselves shoehorned into Chapter 110 of the City’s code regulating “itinerant food vendors” such as Lucky Dog carts and flower salespeople, mobile vendors like La Cocinita’s Rachel Billow and Taceaux Loceaux’s Alex del Castillo began leading the charge to ameliorate the City’s 50-year-old mobile vending laws so that more food trucks could get rolling. Untangling this ball of yarn has, however, proved difficult, more difficult than even City Councilwoman Stacy Head, a reliable advocate for food trucks, could have guessed. Speaking to the Times-Pic‘s Bruce Eggler after presenting the third version of her ordinance to increase the number of permits available to mobile vendors and expand the areas where they can operate, Headexpressed her surprise at the difficulty she’s encountered helping to ease some of the food truck restrictions:

I thought it was a no-brainer, but it has been exceedingly difficult. I didn’t think it would take nine months to do just this tiny little section.

With the up or down vote looming on April 18, Cm. Head seems confident that the food trucks will be able to roll more freely, though she echoed her earlier frustration with the way the debate has dragged on:

This has been going on for almost a year. We’re over nine months into this discussion. My hope is that we go ahead and move forward, and that we vote on it up or down—and the amendments are voted on up or down on the 18th. I feel good about it. I feel like there are very few people who are opposed to food trucks at all, very, very few. Most people have concerns that can be resolved, and I think most of the Council is supportive of it. I’m not sure exactly of the positions of some of my colleagues as to what amendments they’ll be moving forward with and whether those will be amendments that will harm efforts to increase the number of food trucks in New Orleans, but I think it’s [the latest proposal] going to pass, and I think it’s going to pass on the 18th.

Rachel Billow of La Cocinita had been a city politics greenhorn before embarking on what initially seemed like a self-evident effort to ease some of the restrictions that had been choking both current and prospective food truck operators. Nearly a year after the first food truck symposium, however, she sounds more like a weary political veteran:

I’ve never been involved with city politics before, and I’m told that the food truck changes are happening at lightning speed in the scope of New Orleans politics. I’m not from here, so I don’t really know if that’s true, but it’s been a long process. I thought that it’d be pretty straight forward. My biggest concern with the pilot program is that it can all be changed again in a year if, shockingly, we find that food trucks are somehow not good for the city. There’s an opportunity to regulate further, and it will happen by default.I thought it’d be this quick process, but that was obviously inaccurate. I feel like it’s been this long process of trying to discuss with each council member what their concerns are and figuring out what might be a good compromise between what they might say is preposterous and what we think is fair.

In just under a week, the City Council will vote on a proposal that looks something like this: the number of new food truck permits (part of a one-year pilot program) will be reduced from 100 to 75; mobile vendors will be able to stay in one place for up to four hours; operators would have to hold at least $500,000 in commercial general liability insurance; operators would have to prove they have access to a commercial or public restroom within 300 feet of any location they’re operating in; and food trucks would have to park at least 100 feet away from any part of a brick and mortar restaurant they’re operating near, a drastic reduction from the current distance limit of 600 feet.

The Louisiana Restaurant Association‘s pushback against the Ch. 110 overhaul in late January complicated what seemed like a relatively straightforward effort to free up small business owners from regulations governing midcentury hot dog and cut-flower trundlers. More opposition came from CBD residents and business owners such as Cassandra Sharpe,George Schmidt, and Reuben Laws III. Op-ed outpourings of food truck support as well as measured ambivalence followed. Somehow, in the midst of what was turning into a Great Food Truck Debate, food truck deregulation transformed (for some observers) from a small business issue to a barometer of New Orleans’ shifting demographics. Increasing the number of food truck permits wasn’t going to be as innocuous as serving tacos and empanadas to hungry office workers in the CBD—it was going to transfer the reins of power and influence in New Orleans into the hands of hipster colonial outsiders who’d ignore the city’s unique cultural legacy and transform it into a glittering New Portlandia. Jules Bentley immediately drew accusations of paranoia and xenophobia with his lightning-rod food truck Philippic in Antigravity last March, but, amid shadowy allusions to a Koch Brothers capitalistic coup in New Orleans, he echoed a crisis of identity that has troubled New Orleanians since 2005: will the city retain its unique character in an increasingly homogenized, interconnected world, where hip cultural trends from media strongholds like Los Angeles and New York replicate themselves like viruses? In an email to me, he further explained his preoccupation with the influx of so-called “outsiders”:

I do think post-K we’ve seen a lot of people with hidden agendas– usually self-promotion– way too eager to tell the rest of the world about what New Orleans is, what New Orleans needs, and what New Orleans means. So, the day I’m bloviating about what’s authentic or who’s New Orleanian will be the day I’ve absolutely lost my way. That said, people who approach New Orleans without humility, without the deference she’s due– people who come here to talk and tell, rather than to listen and learn– aggravate the hell out of me.

Beignet Roule [Photo: Facebook]

However, not all of the city’s food truckers are outsiders. Operators like Paul LeBourgeois of Beignet Roule are homegrown culinary talents who, like a long of aspiring young restaurateurs, is using the truck he runs with partnerDerrick Fontenot to gain a foothold in the tenuous restaurant industry, where making an investment in a brick-and-mortar location is often a losing gamble. “If some of the current restrictions remained in place,” says LeBourgeois, who obtained his permit just this past February, “doors to the industry would close for people like me.”

Besides, New Orleans is nothing if not a macadam of wildly different cultures, all layered on top of one another generation after generation. Part of city’s great appeal to its steady stream of visitors and immigrants, says Jessie Wightkin, a Taceaux Loceaux employee and culinary arts instructor at NOCCA, is that a good meal at a fair price isn’t a phenomenon here—it’s an essential part of New Orleans’ identity:

One of the most beautiful parts of the food culture of New Orleans is that you can spend $100 dollars on an incredible meal and you can spend $10 and have some damn good eats in this town. I also see New Orleans as having a progressive culinary culture and the resistance to the trucks is super contradictory of that. We serve a lot of chefs at our truck and I think the restaurants that see a truck as a threat need to up their game. Food truck culture is a beautiful way for a chef to test out their vision and get their name out. It shouldn’t be political. It’s in the best interest of the city to support these entrepreneurs and protect them the same way they protect restaurants. The change is coming, what’s the hold up?

The hold up comprises an outdated series of regulations, bureaucratic inertia, or outright hostility for rooted restaurateurs who fear competition from cheaper, more nimble eateries on wheels.

Empanada Intifada [Photo: Official Website]

According to Empanada Intifada co-founder Taylor Jackson, the Food Truck Coalition is currently wrestling with two areas of concern ahead of the April 18 vote: residential zoning regulations that would officially lock food trucks out of about 98 percent of the city, and a catch-22 bathroom restriction that would limit mobile vendors to “donuts of operation” 100 feet away from restaurants, but 300 feet within a commercial restroom that’s open to the public. In the push for the restroom requirement, it’s not easy to see the other hand playing this game of political poker:

The other area of concern is the bathroom issue, and that’s something where the politics of it are really unclear right now. We’re not really sure for whom the bathroom issue is a make or break issue. Right now, in the current proposal, there’s language stating that we have to be within 300 feet of a commercial restroom that’s open to the public, or have a signed letter from a building owner of a commercial restroom that’s not open to the public anytime we’re operating. 300 feet is pretty small, and what would effectively happen under that is we’d have these little donuts of operation, because we couldn’t be within 100 feet of a restaurant, but we’d have to be within 300 feet of a restroom. It’s hard to say whether that’s an improvement on the current distance restrictions or not without spending 20 or 30 hours with a GIS map, seeing where all those restaurants and restrooms are and determining where exactly food trucks would be allowed and where they wouldn’t.

Although Cm. Head has said that the restroom requirement is “wholly inappropriate,” in the interest of political pragmatism, she added the requirement as an option to consolidate support for the food truck proposal among Councilmembers Susan Guidry and Jackie Clarkson. If Cm. Head seems optimistic about the current proposal, it’s because she sees the potential food trucks have to bring foot traffic neighborhoods under-served by brick-and-mortar restaurants and retail establishments, neighborhoods like the Freret Street of just six years ago:

If you’d talked to me six years ago, I would have said Freret would have been a perfect place to try to have one round-up after another. We did have the equivalent of round-ups with the Freret market every single month, which was one of the things that gave rise to the great resurgence in commercial investment along Freret. I certainly hope that same type of growth will occur in part because of interest from the Food Truck Coalition and food truck entrepreneurs in areas like St. Claude, St. Roch, Central City, parts of the Westbank, and even in New Orleans East.

A Central City round up [Photo: Facebook]

So-called “food deserts” aren’t limited to the economically languishing sections of the city, either. Jackson, a former worker bee in the CBD’s honeycomb of high rises, knows how limited the food options in the city’s white-collar epicenter are. What could be an excellent marriage of busy, hungry people and quick, convenient food has been spoiled by a seeming minority of people wielding an inordinately large amount of political influence. Says Jackson:

I was one of those CBD people before I started the truck, and at times when I’ve been working the truck I’ve even had part-time contracts working in the business district. The argument that’s being made that there are sufficient food options in the CBD is just patently absurd, and anyone who lives and works there laughs when those arguments come up. For whatever reason, those arguments have been persuasive with some of the councilmembers, and those councilmembers have, in turn, been reticent to really consider their own reality: City Hall is effectively a food desert itself.

By next Thursday, if all the pieces are in place for an up or down vote of the latest food truck proposal, City Council may finally give some measure of closure to its ironic position in the food desert yawning in the middle of New Orleans.

 

http://nola.eater.com/archives/2013/04/12/a-long-days-journey-into-food-truck-deregulation.php