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City council to consider licensing of food trucks
By adamg on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 11:47am
The City Council today will consider whether to license the latest culinary craze to hit Boston: Food trucks.
City Council President Mike Ross has filed a measure seeking a hearing on how to regulate the trucks, which are just now beginning to spread beyond their traditional base at MIT.
Ross's proposed order speaks of environmental and zoning concerns.
With any luck, the city could have regulations in place in time to annoy regulate all the trucks scheduled to attend Boston's first food-truck festival on Aug. 8.
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Comments
Good Idea
One could argue that this should be a state issue and not a local issue, due to the migratory activities.
I think this is one where the region should definitely look to other cities for what works and doesn't. Some cities even set up vacant lots with services for food trucks, and they are heavily inspected and regulated.
Another place to start: how do they regulate the sausage carts and such? The regulations need to be consistent.
The do regulate the sausage carts.
as they do ice cream trucks.
I am not sure about those trucks that go from contruction site to contruction site (roach coaches) with food. I don't think they are regulated.
errrrrr
i thought that pretty much everything involving the sale of prepared food was regulated? god, i mean, i really hope it is. i love this truck trend, i also love not getting food poisoning.
They are.
The "roach coaches" who prepare their own food must do so in a commercial, inspected kitchen. A lot of them get food from distributors though (like the pre-wrapped sandwiches, etc).
I hope there are more places set up for food trucks. It's something my husband and I have wanted to get into for awhile, but didn't want to piss anyone off over territory. If it's made easier, I'd be all over it.
We need a
Chinese Food truck like the one I saw in the Bronx.. Yummers
There *are* chinese food trucks around here.
There's the "Gooseberrys" truck (Chinese/Thai) at MIT (the "Delicious Lunch Box" truck, another long time denzen of the MIT campus, is no more to be found). There is the Chinese food truck that serves Harvard. And there's the "Chinese Kitchen" that hangs out in the Longwood area.
Hey, that's a nice food truck youse has there!
Woulda be a shame if anything were to happen to it, youse know?
It's a municipal shakedown, pure and simple. But on the plus side,
at least none of the food trucks are from Arizona, then the city council
would have to boycott them in addition to picking their pockets.
yay yay yay yay yay yay yay
yay yay yay yay yay yay yay FOOD TRUCKS!
taco truck taco truck taco truck I want a taco truck.
Construction Site food trucks
Construction site food trucks are in a sense more heavily "regulated" than any others. Keep in mind that many of the job sites they stop off at are union sites and there are controlled routes which are bought and sold. It would not be a wise idea to park your yuppie food truck on someone else's route.
Can you keep us up to date on
Can you keep us up to date on when this hearing will be? Will there be an opportunity for the public to offer testimony? I tried to figure out how their meetings work and when this would be heard but they only seem to list their regular meetings (http://www.cityofboston.gov/calendar/cityclerk.asp). They also have a nice link to their 2008 schedule -- thanks.
didn't Menino already propose
didn't Menino already propose bringing healthy food trucks to public spaces including the Greenway and City Hall Plaza?
There are already food trucks on the Greenway
but that's a state-owned park, not city.
However, I've seen food trucks for years in city-owned Christopher Columbus Park.
Burrito Carts, etc.
These have been around for decades, as have Roach Coaches. Laws are in place for these.
Why any difference? Oh, "NEW" THING = SCARY! MUST GRANDSTAND!
Roach Coaches
Are we sure the City regulates these food trucks? I don't think they need a permit like a sausage cart does. Either way I don't think the Health Department is that active checking up on these guys. I could be wrong.
Roach Coach Versus Sausage/Burrito/Kebab carts
I think there may be some distinction between preparing and serving food, and just serving food.
In any case, I have been buying Herrara's Burritos since they were just about the only Burrito place in the region - like 1992 or so - and before they had an actual restaurant. I don't quite see why the permitting should be any different - safe food handling is safe food handling.
Unless Mike
RotchRoss is simply making sure there aren't loopholes in existing regs (like crossing out "cart" and writing "truck" in in crayon), I smell massive useless timewasting grandstanding pretending to be government here.Cambridge couldn't deal with
Cambridge couldn't deal with the idea of mobile food trucks. So now every truck either has its own assigned on-street parking space, or parks on private property.