Food vending vehicles have been banned from the village for the next six months. Trucks set up before the ban was considered, like this one in the Speedy Mart parking lot and another on Rout 212, are exempt. (photo by Robert Ford)
Village trustees voted unanimously Monday night to place a six-month moratorium on food trucks while they craft a law regulating the vehicles.
During a brief public hearing at which only one resident spoke, Mayor William Murphy said the board’s main concern are the dozen restaurants that line Main and Partition Streets.
He said that during the lunch hour, the trucks, which in the case of the one in the Speedy Mart parking lot sells Mexican food, might compete with some of what restaurants serve. He said if more vendors were permitted without regulations, then “Main Street might turn into a vendor lot.”
He added that brick and mortar restaurants pay property taxes while mobile food trucks don’t.
The moratorium, Murphy pointed out, would only be temporary while the board works through various issues concerning the vendors.
Currently there is no law on the books regulating vendors, Murphy said. Both the vendor at Speedy Mart and the one on Route 212 next to Snyder’s Appliances are being permitted to do business, because they came in before a moratorium was even considered, however, next year, when a law is in place, they will have to abide by whatever regulations are established.
The mayor said the village has already received calls from restaurants and businesses concerned about the trucks.
Village resident Michele Aizenstat said the Village Board should look to Hudson to see how vendors and restaurants can co-exist peacefully. “It’s working there.”
“We just don’t want them all over the street,” Murphy said.
Trustee Patrick Landewe added that there is concern about possible traffic congestion in the village from people stopping their vehicles near the vendors.
For the next several months, the trustees will look at how other towns deal with food vending trucks and craft a law that will allow them to regulate them.
Here’s how other towns deal with food trucks: THEY EMBRACE THEM!
Idjits.
smart move–the trucks do hurt established businesses.
THey are there for lunch and breakfast . Really ? Is the buisness they are going to do really going to hurt resturants in our area. Traffic of people stopping are you kidding me ? Ever been through town in the summer around noon to 2 ? Every sight seeing person is out there . The delivery trucks are out there and stop right in the middle of the road. Competition is good . I have had the pleasure of eating at most places in town . Some great some not so great. Share and embrace .. Dont we have other major problems to worry about ? Yes regulating them is good . but dont ban them .
Ally: If food-trucks hurt the established businesses (an argument you make without any sort of facts or figures to back it up, despite many cities and towns having rich and vibrant ecosystems that include both fixed-location and food-truck eateries), then the established businesses should learn to compete.
If everyone thought like you, the Ford Motor Company would’ve been shut down Day One because it “hurt the established horse-and-buddy businesses”.
That should have been horse-and-buggy. Damned autocorrect.