Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association

Making Strides for the Food Truck Rights

2012 was a busy year for SoCalMFVA.  We faced challenges from everywhere, the state, the County and many of the 88 cities within LA County. We met all those challenges and ended the year as strong as ever by expanding on food truck rights. However, the opponents of mobile vending are gearing up for another fight. 2013 will be our most important year yet to ensure mobile vending remains unencumbered by anticompetitive regulations.

The Association had some major successes in 2012. Most notably on the county level was our cooperative work with the Los Angeles County Health Department that resulted in the repeal of the bathroom letter requirement and the expansion of food truck rights.  The repeal was part of a overhaul of the County’s food truck policies and procedures that were brought on by the hard work of the Association.

On the litigation front, the Association filed nine new lawsuits against Los Angeles County cities. So far eight of those cities have agreed to revise or repeal their restrictive mobile vending rules, including: the City of Industry, Arcadia, and South Pasadena who each previously prohibited mobile vending. In addition, the cities of Lawndale, Carson, Artesia, Compton, and El Segundo have agreed to revise their restrictive regulations to do away with time-limits rules. The City of Monrovia, after fighting the Association for nearly a year and a half finally agreed to repeal and revise their uber restrictive rules. The Association continues to work with cities informally to make sure our member’s rights to be free from illegal and nonsensical regulations are respected.

On the State front we fought a very restrictive health ordinance.  AB1678, would have prohibited food trucks from operating within 1500 of any school in the state. By partnering with other stakeholders statewide we defeated that bill before it went to committee.

We will continue to fight for the rights of food trucks and the consumers who love them in 2013.

Thanks for all your support.