We have added a classifieds section to our site. We thought it would be nice if trucks and people servicing trucks had a place to post their jobs, goods and services. The Association does not endorse any of the items or services in the classifieds.
Please post responsibly.
The SoCalMFVA was the first group to organize and bring food trucks to office buildings in Los Angeles. We have continued to schedule trucks for lunch time service around the Los Angeles area. We ensure that you have a rotating variety of cuisines that offer fast and friendly service. There is no cost to cost associated with this service. If you’re interested in setting up a food truck lot at your office, please contact us at socalmfva@gmail.com.
We can bring a food truck to you, daily, weekly or monthly. We have a wide selection of cuisines to choose from and we let you pick the trucks you want to use.
It seems like every day I read another article about a city somewhere in the United States that has decided that their constituents needs are best served by limiting competition through unfair food truck laws. It always starts off with a mayor, or a city council person proclaiming that they have to protect local restaurants from competition. Maybe they should start protecting their constituents from businesses that don’t want to compete for their dollar. When a city decides that they want two segments of the food service industry to negotiate how best to split the consumer dollar, they are doing their city a disservice. This type of negotiation is usually called “compromise” by city officials, but to the average consumer it looks more like collusion. A city government should not tell it’s citizenry how and where they should spend their money.
In 1979 a California appellate court ruled; ” we conclude that section 80.73(b) 2A(2)(bb) (100 foot buffer zone) is a “rather naked restraint of trade,” and determine that it is “ . . . arbitrarily made for the mere purpose of classification.” In other words, the court found that the 100 foot buffer zone was unconstitutional. Regulations must be made to serve the public good. A city must show that there is a rational basis for the regulation. Restricting competition does not serve the public good.
If you’re a food truck operator, or a a food truck fan, it’s important to control the message. When a city official says food trucks engage in “unfair competition”, explain to them that you’re concerned with “consumer choice,” Ask a city official if they’ve tried to ban pizza places from delivering pizza near restaurants. Inquire about how the city tried to limit Netflix deliveries by Blockbuster Video stores. Ask why they think competition is unhealthy for the market place.
Competition is good for your community. Restaurants have an incredible advantage over food trucks. Shelter, seating, alcohol and on-site restrooms are hard to compete with.
-Matt Geller
CEO SoCal Mobile Food Vendors Association
Reposted from the Santa Monica Daily Press
The California Heritage Museum is debuting a new weekly community event entitled Tuesday Night Food Truck Bazaar.
There will be 10 food trucks serving everything from fish tacos to lobster rolls, and even Korean barbecue.
The weekly event, which takes place in the parking lot of the museum, will rotate trucks each week in the hopes of equally representing every nationality possible.
Starting Feb. 26, the museum will add a bazaar on its lawn next to the food trucks where attendees can purchase children’s clothes and toys, yoga and gym clothing, sculptures from Bali and surf and snow boards.
The Victorian restaurant is open so that guests who purchase from the food trucks can eat their dinner in the outdoor patio, the indoor first floor bar, or the downstairs basement bar free of charge.
Parking is available within the museum’s lot. For additional information, visithttp://www.californiaheritagemuseum.org.
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.
-by Baylen Linnekin (posted from Reason Magazine)
A new poll finds Americans oppose food bans by a 5-1 margin and food taxes by a 2-1 margin. Supporters of food freedom should take note—and maybe even a victory lap.
A new poll finds Americans have little stomach “for policies that would constrain consumer choices…such as limits on the amount or type of food that can be purchased or taxes on unhealthy foods or drinks.”
Respondents expressed universal opposition to food bans and taxes. While opposition to bans on marketing “unhealthy foods aimed at children” only trumped support slightly, opponents of taxing those same foods outnumbered supporters by a nearly 2-1 margin, and those who opposed “[l]imiting the types or amounts of foods and drinks people can buy” outnumbered supporters of food bans by a startling 5-1 margin (74 percent to 15 percent).
Furthermore, when asked whether maintaining a healthy weight was something “the whole community, including the schools, government, health care providers, and the food industry should deal with,” less than one-third of respondents favored that approach, while 52 percent stated this was “something individuals should deal with on their own.”
The study reveals 97 percent of respondents believe the most likely cause of obesity is sedentary inactivity related to “TV, video game[s] and computer[s].”
While I don’t claim to know the root cause(s) of obesity, this strong belief among respondents that Americans are obese because we sit on our butts too much has been echoed by research. For example, in a 2005 article in the Annual Review of Public Health, “Economic Causes and Consequences of Obesity,” researcher Eric Finkelstein and his colleagues looked at the results of four previous obesity studies and found “[t]he published evidence, although not conclusive, suggests that technology may be primarily responsible for the obesity epidemic.”
Amazingly, the very same study by Finkelstein was later used as the sole scientific basis of New York City’s soda ban.
When I filed comments this past summer on behalf of Keep Food Legal and its members in opposition to the ban, I blasted it in part because, I wrote, “the only evidence” New York City’s health department had cited as a basis for the proposed ban was Finkelstein’s “2005 Annual Review of Public Health journal article” which, I argued, “might better be used to support a ban on iPhones, televisions, or public transportation.”
While the AP/NORC poll can be used to further bolster the case for food freedom against disingenuous, restrictive policies like that adopted in New York, it also provides a welcome counter to some recent frank research with which I nonetheless have taken issue.
In a column last summer, I expressed skepticism over the results of a survey research paper authored by Prof. Jayson Lusk, who concluded “that a majority of respondents can be classified as ‘food statists’… who support ‘more government action in the realm food and agricultural relative to the status quo.’”
I offered largely anecdotal opposition to Lusk’s conclusion, writing that “people who champion food freedom… make up a much larger percentage of the population than this research would indicate.”
While I didn’t need a poll to tell me that what I see every day in my own work reflects a larger consensus across the country, I’m nonetheless grateful that the AP/NORC poll results do reflect this reality. And though the poll has so far received little fanfare beyond an AParticle (hardly unexpected), I believe the poll results are a welcome shot in the arm for supporters of the food freedom movement—and a shot across the bow of its opponents.
Those opponents are legion in academia, public health, and the media.
Two days after the AP/NORC published its poll results, an op-ed calling for increased regulation of the food supply appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.
The author, Dr. Robert Lustig, urged the FDA to cap the amount of added sugar that can appear in any foods. (page 2)
We are retiring our Google Calendar schedule in favor of a more robust system. Starting next week all of our lot schedules will be on LotMom. Following your favorite trucks just got easier. With lotmom, we can serve you real-time information about all the best truck lots. http://lotmom.com
LotMom provides the tools to keep your food truck rolling. With LotMom, you can manage your regulatory filings, book your truck at events, or pick up tips from community members who have traveled the same road.You can also stay connected to your followers through our real-time integration with twitter, facebook and our own consumer facing platform. At LotMom, we focus on your business so that you can focus on your food.
Book, schedule and manage trucks on your lots without the hassle. LotMom allows you to complete your bookings with the push of a button, and gives you total control over how your lots are managed. With LotMom, we do the hustling so you can keep your lot full of your favorite trucks and satisfied customers.
Following your favorite trucks just got easier. Because food trucks and lots use LotMom to manage their schedules, we can serve you real-time information about all the best trucks and lots. You just tell us “Where”,”When”, and “What”, and we’ll find the trucks and lots to feed your hunger.
