Quincy updates food truck ordinance
The owner of Quincy food truck looks at traffic while parked outside his brick-and-mortar restaurant in February 2021. The city has revised an ordinance by updating and reducing the restrictions on food truck operation in town.
FILE PHOTO
QUINCY — More options will be available for food trucks to operate in Quincy following revisions to the city’s itinerant vendor ordinance approved Sept. 3.
The ordinance actually addresses all itinerant vendors, but some of the restrictions effectively prohibited food trucks most of the time. That prompted a question from council member Dave Dormaier during an Aug. 20 discussion on the proposed changes.
“Why did we stop allowing food trucks in here to begin with?” Dormaier asked.
Worley said an earlier council made the decision at a time when food trucks were less prevalent and only one was regularly doing business. It was parked permanently at a local business and the council members at the time didn’t like the look, Worley said.
“When that property sold, they stopped allowing them as a stationary vendor,” Worley said. “Food trucks can still operate throughout the city based on the requirements and restrictions in our code. It’s just that they wanted to stop it from setting up (at a permanent location). Obviously, that climate has changed a bit, and people are more receptive to it.”
The previous ordinance limited food trucks (or other stationary vendors) to four days of operation per month. There were also restrictions on location and hours of operation.
“The current council, through discussions with a variety of property owners, requested staff research what was working in other communities,” Worley wrote in answer to an email from the Columbia Basin Herald. “We took it to the planning commission for review and amended the code through (a revised) ordinance to allow food trucks.”
The revised ordinance eliminates the restrictions on days per month and changes the requirements for location.
All vendors including food trucks will be required to have permission from property owners and provide city officials with a map of their location. Businesses will be charged a license fee. Nonprofit and charitable organizations, along with school clubs, that are doing fundraisers have been and continue to be exempt from the fee.
The new ordinance also establishes hours of operation for a food truck park if there’s interest in building one.
“Some council members were interested in having an area to have food trucks once a week and move it around to a variety of places that would fit the bill for such an endeavor. It was thought at one time to be a city-controlled process,” Worley wrote.
But further investigation led to changes in thinking about it, he wrote.
“This made more sense for a private business to do, which led some property owners to consider how this could be done as a business venture on a permanent basis,” Worley wrote. “So the logical thing to do was to get the ordinance passed first allowing food truck with fewer restrictions and allow potential food truck parks to come about naturally.”