Players in the Spokane food truck-regulations fracas were meeting this week to try to iron out some of the issues around a proposed ordinance governing how, when, and where mobile food truck vendors operate in and around the Spokane area. 

Ben Stuckart, Spokane City Council president, says he’s still trying to understand what the issues are with mobile food cart vendors regarding proposed guidelines introduced at a May 20 council meeting. 

“We’ve had a yearlong process of dealing with the food truck ordinance, and we heard zero opposition from the food truck owners until the night we tabled the ordinance,” Stuckart says. “Literally, no one heard any concerns until that night.” 

After researching and reviewing the city’s food-truck regulations for about a year, Stuckart says city staff proposed a new set of guidelines at the city council meeting two weeks ago, but the ordinance was withdrawn temporarily after opposition from food truck vendors who voiced concerns over new fees and directives.  The council, led by Stuckart and Councilman Mike Allen, voted 5-2 to delay the matter for one month so all sides could meet to iron out differences. 

City mobile food trucks currently operate in the city under an itinerant vendor permit, which applies to temporary or permanent registered businesses that sell food or wares typically from a temporary location. In an earlier story, Andrew Worlock, associate planner at the city, told the Journal that the code was adopted to address door-to-door salesmen or vendors who aren’t location specific. 

To operate in Spokane, a mobile food vendor has to have permits and approval from the city and the fire department as well as the Spokane Regional Health District and the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries. 

The city assigned an interdepartmental team of eight people to evaluate the existing regulations more than a year ago and the team looked at how other cities regulate mobile food vendors. 

A Regional Health District list shows about 80 mobile food vendors currently operating throughout Spokane County.

Worlock says the proposed licensing ordinance was postponed because there was enough concern on the part of the mobile food truck vendors that the city wasn’t ready to move on it. But the opposition caught him off guard. 

“It was a bit of a surprise because we’ve been working with them for over a year, but they had comments after the proposal,” he says. 

Among the proposed requirements as they stand are the following:

•Food trucks have to comply with parking meters.

•If food trucks are near a city park, they must obtain written permission from the city’s park board.

•Food vendors must supply a list of locations where they plan to sell.

•Trucks can’t operate within 75 feet of a restaurant’s entrance unless they obtain written permission from the business.

•An annual license requires $40 application fee and $10 fee for each proposed location. The renewal fee is $40 per year and $10, per year, for each additional location.

•Food truck owners are required to pay an annual fee of $90 toward the Parking and Business Improvement Area, if a food truck is parked downtown. 

Roian Doctor, who co-owns the Jamaican Jerk Pan food truck with Sabrina Sorger, says he wasn’t happy about the new licensing rules because they would take take more money out of the pockets of vendors. “Each time you have a new location you would not only have to pay the $10 but get permission from the city. That’s not right.”

Joile Forral, president of the Greater Spokane Food Truck Association, co-owns Couple of Chefs Catering with her business partner Allen Skelton, and says she and other members of the association formed in January believe the regulations will inhibit their ability to do business. 

The requirements they take issue with include the necessity of having to have written permission of nearby businesses in order to operate even though the trucks are parked in a public right of way, the annual license application fee of $40 and $10 fee for each proposed location, and the fact that the ordinance doesn’t address parking meter issues which typically don’t allow the food trucks to remain in place for more than two or three hours at a given location. 

Forral says Couple of Chefs has as many as six  locations during the week, three of which are currently downtown, which would mean paying $60 a year, or more, for different locations. She says she and her partner opened a mobile business because it enables the business to move wherever they choose so they can try out different locations, and relocate as needed.

“If we have to submit locations and get written approval every time we have a new location, and pay another $10 for each one and get written approval from the city, it inhibits our ability to conduct business,” Forral says. 

Forral and her partner opened the business in 2011 and started vending out of the food truck in 2012. Business is good she says but much of it depends on their ability to move to where people are buying. 

Forral says after a meeting with the city about a year ago and another meeting with the Downtown Spokane Partnership several months ago, members of the Greater Spokane Food Truck Association didn’t respond to the city because they didn’t know what the procedure was for doing so.

“I don’t know that much about politics,” she says. “There was a definite lack of communication, and we didn’t know what the procedure was to respond.” Forral says the group only saw the full list of proposed requirements at the city council meeting when the issue was postponed.

Worlock says the draft rules were shared with the group in February, “and we met with them briefly to discuss. We also asked for input and comments again in late April as we were heading towards the council hearing. They did not contact us or provide comments until the hearing.”

Still, Worlock says he understands their concerns, and believes the city can make changes in some areas to address some of those concerns.

 “They don’t agree with the per-location fee and they don’t agree with the spacing requirement from existing businesses,” he says. “They don’t think the city should be preventing competition between businesses. In fact, we just want to create a system for the food truck vendors under which they can operate where they’re wanted, and aren’t in a place where there is a lot of pushback.” 

Worlock says there have been complaints, and the city has to mediate those complaints. “We want them to have an up-front conversation with property owners so that they’re creating a relationship with the owners and in most instances, per health code requirements; they have that kind of relationship because they have to have access to a restroom for their employees.” 

Worlock says the licensing structure may need to be looked at in terms of the location fees particularly. “Maybe it’s a flat fee that we charge instead of the fee for each location,” he says. “But as a practical matter, I’d be surprised if there is any vendor with more than a half-dozen locations. 

Worlock says another issue the city may look at is the parking meter issue. 

City parking code requirements mean that a two-hour meter must paid and then only be used for two hours and the vehicle must move on. Worlock says that doesn’t work well for some food truck vendors.

“They can’t just pay an additional two hours because they are supposed to move after the first two hours is up,”