By Richard Sullins | richard@rantnc.com
The presence of food trucks on Sanford’s city streets and parking lots has been on the increase in recent years, providing folks with an opportunity to taste cuisines from across the state and around the world in ways that brick and mortar restaurants are often not able to do.
The existence of these food trucks and street vendors has gone largely unregulated by the city for years – until now.
The city council has passed an amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) that establishes regulations that relate to the definition, location, and standards for mobile food vendors within the city, the town of Broadway, and the remainder of Lee County.
The new rules allow only one food truck or mobile food vendor to operate on a particular parcel of land at a time, unless it is part of an official event sanctioned by Sanford, Broadway, or Lee County. More than one vendor can also be allowed if a temporary use permit for the property is obtained. Vendors will be required to obtain permission from the property owner in advance.
The regulations do not allow food trucks, however, to operate from vacant or undeveloped properties, and trucks must provide an adequate number of solid waste receptacles for use by their customers. Owners are also responsible for removal and disposal of trash as a result of their operation.
Thomas Mierisch, a planner with the city’s Zoning and Design Review office, said Sanford is seeing an uptick in the number of persons wanting to obtain permits to operate food trucks of their own and that as a result, his office began putting together a draft version of an ordinance earlier this year that would spell out the city’s requirements and expectations in a much greater way than is possible now.
Shannon Suggs, owner of Suggs Insurance, told the council she and her husband had leased the building and lot that adjoins her business at 200 South Horner Boulevard on August 1 in hopes of turning it into a food “plaza” where two or three trucks might park and serve customers who were shopping downtown. They began making improvements to the lot around Labor Day.
“Once we began,” she told the council, “we were immediately approached by the city and told that there was no ordinance, but that they would only allow one per lot, again even though no ordinance was in place. We met with the city and were told that they would look at what others around us were doing to determine a possible solution, but in the meantime, we could only park one truck at a time on the lot at South Horner. This was not what we had been led to believe at our first meeting with them.”
Mierisch told the city council that upon adoption of this amendment regarding the placements of food trucks and the regulations that govern them, a second amendment will be prepared to cover the use of larger tracts, such as the Suggs property, for use as “food plazas.”
The city council adopted the amendment in a unanimous vote.
I think if Hugger Mugger Brewing wants to have 2 or 3 food vendors on site at the same time it shouldn’t require a permit. They have plenty of space out back, and I have been there when they have had a regular food truck and a desserts food truck and they have had plenty of space. How much red tape are we as a town going to allow to be placed on tax paying businesses in a “open for business agenda”.
Also, what does this mean for events at Depot Park? Is DSI going to be required to pull permits ahead of time to allow beer and food vendors or just be denied because its Government property?
Sanford is a piece a crap town anyhow, as my dad always told me growing up Sanford is a hole on the map. Always trying to ruin someone’s living. Probably why we have no skating rink or bowling alley any more. Guess to have fun we need to sell drugs on the streets.
In Sanfords defense, the bowling alley burned down.
sounds like “Sanford is boring” enjoys selling drugs on the street. If you don’t like it here….move or do something that makes it better instead of relying on others to do it for you. A bowling ally or a skating rink in Lee county went out of style in the 1970’s so find a new hobby for fun or build your own places.
they thrive in other cities…maybe you are old….LOL
party poopers….no chance for good ole fashioned competition and variety…pretty soon it will be types of foods and portion sizes that are regulated….pretty dumb
um…..news flash genius. Types of food and portion sizes are already regulated. Why do you think there is a size and price difference between a lunch and dinner portion? And the type of food that is being served the “chef” or “cook” as they are referred to, are usually trained in that particular cuisine.
If they thrive in other cities then “if you build it they will come”
Sounds like you need to go hang out at the old folks home cause you seem out of style. Just because your life consist of still sitting at home reading the newspaper and watch Hee Haw reruns doesn’t mean we all do.
Personally, I’d rather have more brick and mortar restaurants in the downtown area. This set of regulations slightly levels the playing field between real restaurants and trucks.The level of investment in a real restaurant and the associated overhead puts brick and mortar at a disadvantage financially. If I’m paying $15 for a burger and a drink, I would much rather eat it off a plate in a climate controlled environment than on a bench out of a paper basket. Thats just me, but if you want more restaurants, you need to regulate the food truck situation. Hopefully the city stays on top of this. Things are looking better every day, downtown Sanford is going to be an even cooler place sooner than later. Shop local!
Sometimes, especially in todays economy, people don’t have the ability to invest in a brick and mortar place. They invest the best way they can to build a business, those very same trucks can one day become a brick and mortar restaurant, except now they have government putting up barriers to entry and making it more difficult for these entrepreneurs to be successful and grow their business. I can name numerous multi million dollar businesses that started as push carts, mall kiosks, and food trucks. Whenever government gets involved they always negatively impact whatever industry they choose to regulate.