The City Commission voted July 10 to loosen the regulations regarding food trucks in the area.
In the past, the operation of a food truck was limited to three consecutive days over a 90-day period. Commissioners said they felt this restricted the number of trucks available in the city and began working on changing the policy after a local food truck operator had requested the rule be reexamined.
“This is better than what we have now by a long shot,” Lott said. “When you read it I can see why a truck wouldn’t want to come here, and I think what you were looking for was a compromise, and I see that.”
Regulations vary from city to city with restrictions ranging from an outright ban to a nearly free reign. After reviewing other jurisdictions laws and examining the need in Plant City, the new regulation was written to allow a food truck to set up shop once every seven days from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The food truck sales have to be at an operating business or an active construction site with operating bathrooms within 150 feet for patron use.
The hope is a revised code will offer benefits to local businesses. Many commercial and industrial areas have few on-site or nearby food options and the commissioners said loosening the regulations may encourage trucks to visit these areas and fill that need.
However, Lott also voiced his hesitations with the code, asking if the commission was still being too restrictive with the new version and if there were ways to loosen the code even more.
“I’m all for approving this tonight because I think it’s a major improvement from what we have,” Lott said. “I would like to see staff take it up again, no rush because we’ve been living by this old policy for a long, long time, but take it up and bring back collectively what you’ve heard from all of us tonight and maybe we can amend this at a later date.”
Other commissioners were hesitant to blow the code open.
Commissioner Michael Sparkman said while the city doesn’t want to restrict local businesses and infringe upon their ability to do something to benefit their employees, it needed to be careful not to hurt the existing restaurants in town.
“This is a catch-22, it’s very difficult,” Sparkman said. “We’ve really got to support our local businesses because they pay taxes. They pay for water and sewer and these others don’t do that… to me it’s a very sensitive situation.”
The new regulations were approved with a unanimous vote.