On February 14, 2012 Assemblymember Bill Monning (Carmel) introduced AB 1678, which would prohibit mobile vending 1500 feet from an elementary or secondary school from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.  This Bill is flawed in many respects.  If enacted, the Bill would decimate the burgeoning mobile food industry without addressing the author’s concerns in any significant manner.   In many California cities, more than 80 percent of the public right of ways are within 1500 feet of a school.  Without suitable areas to operate a large number of mobile restaurants will be forced out of business.  Yet, even with food trucks out of business, children will have plenty of access to “unhealthy” food.  Even if one accepts the Author’s claim that students on closed campuses leave school to obtain unhealthy food, the Bill will do nothing to curb this alleged threat.  The Bill  does not purport to ban the sale of any particular type of food.  So fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and gas station stores will continue to operate within the restricted area offering all manner of “unhealthy” food.

In the last three years mobile vending has become one of the fastest growing trends in food service.  Restauranteurs have taken to the streets to deliver a wide variety of cuisines.  The mobile food facility is merely a delivery system used to service the public.  Many trucks pride themselves on providing organic healthy meals that come straight from the farmer’s market.  Even the trucks that do not promote their cuisines as health food often use only high quality ingredients in their food’s preparation.  This Bill does not differentiate between cuisines, only the delivery mechanism used by a restauranteur to serve the public.  Imagine the Bill had banned all restaurants with a drive through window from operation within 1500 feet of a school.  Healthy restaurants that wanted to service the public and provide a quick take out option would be prohibited from doing so just because of a service practice.  This Bill does not ban unhealthy food, it bans a service mechanism.
The Bill’s attempt to make a statewide prohibition to address local issues simply makes no sense.  A number of Cities and Counties already have rules prohibiting mobile vendors from operating near schools while in session.  Local school districts have rules prohibiting students from leaving campus.  The Author fails to make any showing as to why the State should make these broad legislative decisions when the local authorities already have the power to do so.  If enacted this Bill would even restrict schools from holding food truck fundraisers on campuses.

California is in the middle of any unprecedented financial crisis.  However, instead of using our limited legislative resources in an efficient manner, this Bill would put thousands of people out of work without actually addressing the issue of childhood obesity.  The Author claims to know what is best for every county, city, town, and school in the entire state.  This Bill will be defeated because Californians are smart enough to know there are better ways to address these issues without damaging an entire industry.

Even more troubling is the frequency in which the Nouveau Food Truck industry is being inspected.  Every truck is required to be inspected 2 times per fiscal year.  Our members have already been inspected an average of 2.4 times for the 2011/2012 fiscal year which ends June 30, 2012.  There are over 2600 trucks that need to be inspected twice for the 2011/2012 fiscal year.  Currently, there are over 1700 trucks that have not received one inspection this fiscal year. These are figures from County’s own website (http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/rating/ Search: Catering Truck -sorted by: Inspection Date).  Even more troubling is the fact that there are over 450 trucks that have not been inspected since the 2009/2010 fiscal year. In 7 months, The VIP have inspected 750 or so trucks out of the over 2600.  At this rate they will never get through all of the trucks.  At the end of last fiscal year, 30% of the trucks did not even receive one inspection.  Some of our members had as many as 6 inspections last fiscal year.

Under “About Us” on the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health website, they have a mission statement.  It reads: “The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health protects health, prevents disease, and promotes the health and well-being for all persons in Los Angeles County. Our focus is on the population as a whole, and we conduct our activities through a network of public health professionals throughout the community.” The SoCal Mobile Food Vendors’ Association has been working for the interests of our members since January 2010.  We believe the interests of our members coincide directly with interests in Public Health.  If the public is not protected, our industry will suffer.

This highly successful gourmet food truck lot has been in operation since October 2010 and has been instrumental in popularizing the gourmet food truck movement in Los Angeles. It sees thousands of customers every Tuesday and is one of the most desirable locations among truckers. Susan Harding of the Clean Street Food Truck says, “The Victorian is one of our favorite locations with a wide range of attendees from babies, couples, groups of friends and even a television crew interviewing for French television.”

According to the lot administrator, Yeyen Ong, “This is a hugely popular lot and many of our truckers are always fighting to vend here. With the new heat lamps installed, customers will be able to enjoy the same great food and atmosphere without having to bare the cold.”

The Santa Monica Food Truck lot serves dinner to the community every Tuesdays from 5pm to 10pm at the Victorian lot, located at the corner of Main Street and Ocean Park Boulevard (2612 Main Street, 90405). Drinks are served by the Victorian, along with live music performances. The Basement Tavern a bar located in the basement of the Victorian allows food truck patrons to come down and enjoy a drink.  A percentage of all trucker proceeds are donated to the California Heritage Museum, located right by the lot. To date, the trucks have raised over $60,000 for the California Heritage Museum.

Earlier this year, the SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Association, represented by the law firm of Dermer Behrendt, sued the City of Monrovia alleging that Monrovia’s recently enacted mobile-vending ordinance was an oppressive, vague, and anticompetitive regulation that violates California state law.  Los Angeles Superior Court Case number BC458142.

Wednesday, Judge Michelle Rosenblatt of the Los Angeles Superior Court dealt a major blow to Monrovia’s primary legal-theory.  In denying Monrovia’s second attempt to have the case dismissed, the Court went so far as to suggest that Monrovia’s Ordinance is a “de facto ban, which would conflict with state law” under the 1986 case of Barajas v. City of Anaheim.

Thus, the Court not only accepted the Association’s interpretation of California law, but highlighted that the complaint and the briefing suggested Monrovia’s old-town and residential bans, along with a host of other regulations limiting the ability of mobile vendors to operate, amount to an unlawful, de facto ban on mobile vending.

This ruling is important for several reasons.

First, it undermines Monrovia’s main legal theory position, which has been taken by several other aggressive cities that are hostile to mobile vending — that a 2008 amendment to the California Vehicle Code undermined the continuing validity of Barajas.  The Court’s citation of Barajas as controlling law undermines Monrovia’s main defense.

Second, the Court ruled that the briefing suggested that Monrovia’s Ordinance is, on its face, a de facto ban according to the complaint.  Monrovia’s ordinance includes several “new” regulations as part of its attempt to protect its old-town fixed-location merchants from competition.  An Association victory will result in a declaration that those new regulations are just as illegal as the old ones.

The Court’s language suggests that the Association is likely to prevail and reshape the landscape of mobile vending in Southern California.  An Association victory will establish the continuing “public safety” limitation and preclusion on prohibiting mobile vending in light of the 2008 Amendment to the California Vehicle Code.

Meanwhile, Monrovia is now facing the likelihood of having wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars passing an ordinance it should have known was illegal.

Unfortunately, the legal system does not work as fast as the people who love gourmet food trucks would like.  A resolution in early 2012 is likely — which means that 2012 is likely to be the year the mobile vending opportunities really expand to where the California Legislature intended when it changed in the law in 1985.

For more information contact Matt Geller of the SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Association at 310-666-9950 or matt@socalmfva.com.

We want to invite the industry to grade the graders.

If you have a truck, email socalmfva(at)gmail.com from your business email and I will send you the grading survey of the inspector you would like to grade.  We’re not putting the surveys out to the general public because we want the results to represent the vendors only.

Please fill out the evaluation honestly. Sometimes you may not like the results of an inspection, but if the inspector was fair and respectful, please do not hold the results against them.

Thanks
Matt Geller

September 08, 2011|By Gustavo Arellano |Special to the Los Angeles Times

Southern California’s latest foodie trend has the region atwitter. Lines form long into the night at the latest hot spot for edible treasures, while wily entrepreneurs outdo each other by parking at the best spots. But not everyone is happy. Brick-and-mortar restaurant owners fume that their pop-up rivals take away business; county health officials quickly enact regulations, and politicians push laws to regulate or even ban the vendors from city limits — but not without sparking a public uproar.

Continue Reading at LA TIMES:

As one of the Food-Truck Lawyers, I often have to rebut this argument with simple economic reasoning — which doesn’t always work so well because it is a little on the theoretical and, hence, boring side.  This week’s liquidation of Borders Group, Inc., and the media and societal reaction to it illustrates why the argument is so wrong and why the advance of food trucks should be welcomed as progress and not fought.

This week Borders Group, Inc. — the parent company of the familiar book store chain — announced that it will liquidate.  Borders was unable to find a buyer for its 399 stores.  The first Borders opened in 1971 and it was sold it K-Mart in 1992, which helped it expand from 20 to 400 stores.

So why did Borders fail?  The Wall Street Journal provides an analysis.  “The fall of the nation’s second-largest bookstore chain surprised few inside Store No. 1.”  (July 19, 2011, Lamenting Borders’ Death at ‘Store No. 1’ by Matthew Dolan.)  The WSJ surmises that the stores lost their distinctiveness while changes in technology led to increased competition from Amazon.com and other internet retailers and e-book providers.

The one theme that we do not find anywhere in the media is that someone, Amazon competed ‘unfairly’ and that Borders should not be allowed to go out of business.  Yet, Amazon, and online retailers in general, have enjoyed less sales tax exposure.  Certainly, Amazon has lower “overhead” (a common complaint from would-be economists posing as restaurateurs).

Yet, it seems to me that the loss of Borders is seen as merely a signpost on the road to progress.  Amazon offered consumers what they wanted, faster, less expensive, and now with Kindle, better.  This is exactly what is happening with the Gourmet Food Trucks.

Quick-serve and fast food restaurants are finding that they are unable to maintain high margins in office complexes when confronted with gourmet street-fare.   Consumers are voting with their feet that they prefer choice, and a better price/quality combination.  This is despite restaurants advantage of climate controls, tables, and bathrooms!

Why is this happening?  Truck technology allowing for more methods of cooking and meal preparation safety combined with social media has changed the competitive landscape.  Older industries are caught flat footed and the weakest competitors are seeking governmental protection.

The silliness of the arguments about “lower overhead” or “unfair competition” is shown in the case of Borders.  Not one government is seeking to ban online book sales, E-readers, or subsidizing brick and mortar book stores.  Why?  Because, at a core level, everyone knows it is futile and undermines free-market competition that drives progress.  Most people do not what fewer, more expensive books, less access, and fewer choices to read.

So the next time you read someone like the guys over at the Lemon Moon Restaurant (which is petitioning to have trucks prohibited from its block) decrying how “unfair” the competition is from food trucks that cannot provide shelter, climate control, tables, or bathrooms, I suggest you think twice.  If they cannot compete against a clearly disadvantaged business platform then what does that say about their prices and/or quality combination?  In other words, do you really want to live in a world without Amazon.com and consumer choice?

Jeff Dermer is the Managing Partner of Dermer Behrendt — the Food Truck Attorneys.  (www.dermerbehrendt.com) Twitter @Dermer_Behrendt

Councilman Bill Rosendahl introduced a motion (11-1157) on July 1, 2011, to restrict the height and length of vehicles on Olympic and Sawtelle Boulavards.  This motion was introduced under the guise of public safety.  This is clearly an anti-competitive measure to limit the public’s access to their favorite food trucks for the benefit of the Lemon Moon restaurant owners (number to complain: 310-442-9191)  who feel they should have a geographic monopoly over the Olympic and Bundy area.

The SoCal Mobile Food Vendors’ Association has been intimately involved with the Transportation Committee for nearly a year.  We have participated in a number of task force meetings and have had attended meetings at the request of the Councilman Bill Rosendahl with local business interests to attempt to resolve issues throughout the City.  We continue to make progress in Venice and on Wilshire Blvd and we’re confident that we can help resolve the issues on Sawtelle and Olympic Boulavards in an equitable manner.

Resolution 11-1157 was introduced with no input from the industry.  It is clearly a competition issue disguised as a public safety concern.  Councilman Bill Rosendahl is using his position to advance the interests of a few businesses over the interests of hundreds of his constituents that frequent the trucks on a daily basis.  To protect Lemon Moon, Rosendahl is also willing to deprive all surrounding business owners of access to delivery trucks including UPS, Fedex, and so forth.

It’s unfortunate that a few businesses can hold so much sway over City politics to the detriment of consumers and consumer choice.

This resolution, if passed, could have serious consequences on the industry.

If you’re a fan of consumer choice please email Rosendahl’s office. or call 310-575-8461 to complain.

Agenda:

http://ens.lacity.org/clk/committeeagend/clkcommitteeagend3072344_07132011.pdf

Resolution:

http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2011/11-1157_MOT_07-01-11.pdf

Mobi Munch, the nation’s first turnkey mobile food service platform provider supporting new and existing food truck entrepreneurs, sent me on a trip to assess the regulatory environment throughout the US.  My first stop was Miami.  I met with Jack Garabedian, the creator of the Biscayne Triangle Truck Round-up (BTTR) event and the owner of Jefe’s Original Fish Tacos and Burgers.  The event originally started on a smaller footprint space and had to be moved to it’s current location on the Johnson and Wales University Campus due to its popularity.  There, up to 30 trucks gather every Tuesday to serve the surrounding community.  Jack told me that around 4000 people show up every week to eat off their favorite trucks, trailers and bike (yes bike) vendors.  I was there on Tuesday, the first day of the NBA finals, featuring the Miami Heat, and it was still packed with students, families, and kids.  People were picnicking, kicking soccer balls, and generally having a great time.  Jack has taken a full proof strategy when it comes to food truck advocacy, get the people on your side, and the regulators will follow.

I can tell you that organizing food truck events can be like herding cats, but Jack Garabedian has done a terrific job selecting trucks, reaching out to new trucks, and promoting the BTTR event.  While I was there, I saw police and code enforcers walking around the event smiling and hanging out with the crowd.  The police officers walked up to Jack while we were chatting and had nothing but nice things to say to him.  With an event that focuses so heavily on community, any regulator would be crazy to try and get in between the people and their food trucks.

Events like these help connect the traditionally transient food trucks to a community.  It’s the first step in creating a bond that will help bring about positive changes to food truck regulations.  I’ve seen this first hand with our Tuesday night Food Truck Lot in Santa Monica and now, in Miami with the BTTR event.  Hopefully these events will continue to grow and have a positive impact on the industry as a whole.

Next stop New York.  I will be on the East Coast for another week.  If you would like to talk food truck advocacy, please contact me through the “Ask Matt Geller” portion of Mobile Food News.  If need be, I will stop in your city and meet up with you.  We are slowly but surely creating a patch work of advocacy organizations nation wide, and I do my best to lend my services to any group that is interested.

SIDE NOTE:  Jack Garabedian’s Jefe’s Original Fish Tacos & Burgers, has the best Fish Tacos I’ve had outside of Ensenada….  Thanks for dinner, Jack!

By Matt Geller CEO SoCal Mobile Food Vendors’ Association