The Long Beach City Council on Tuesday could give staff direction on new regulations for food trucks, with a policy expected to come back for a vote early next year.
A report published by Lisa Wise Consulting, the firm hired by the city, lists some long- and short-term fixes to the city’s municipal code meant to reshape how the city regulates food trucks, including where and how they’re allowed to operate.
Some of the more immediate changes could require food truck operators to obtain a permit from the city’s health department in order to legally operate in the city. Right now, food trucks with county health permits can sell food in the city and are not subject to enforcement from city departments.
Other suggestions include cleaning up the city’s municipal code to better define what a food truck is, including differentiating them from ice cream trucks or other mobile carts that also sell food. The report also recommends creating a new food truck coordinator position to promote consistency, clarity and equity for the city’s food truck operators.
The council requested an update to the city’s rules for food trucks in February 2020 and hired a consultant to work with business owners, residents and other stakeholders to narrow down recommendations for what those new rules could look like.
Some council members said they wanted to protect brick and mortar locations—which have overhead costs like rent and utilities—from having business siphoned away by food trucks.
Supporters of a petition with nearly 2,000 signatures of people who want to see food trucks continue operation in the city could provide some pushback against any council recommendations to limit food truck operators’ ability to sell in Long Beach.
Potential changes
The two-step process outlined by the report from Lisa Wise Consulting recommends updating the municipal code to be compliant with state law as well as stripping away obsolete parts of existing city law.
Long Beach’s municipal code currently says that food trucks can only operate at active construction sites, and California law allows food trucks to achieve compliance with health codes by operating within 200 feet of a public restroom or if it has permission to use an adjacent business’ facilities.
Requiring food trucks doing business in Long Beach to obtain a permit from the city could have the most immediate effect on operators. The city estimates that those permits could run between $250 and $828 per truck annually depending on the type of food the truck is selling and the complexity of its operations.
Still to be determined
The direction of the future rules for food trucks could hinge on Tuesday’s discussion by the council.
During public meetings led by the consultant group, leaders talked about creating food truck villages to allow the city to better enforce health codes and ensure that trucks have access to facilities like trash cans, restrooms and dining areas that don’t obstruct the public right of way.
Long Beach’s existing rules prohibit food trucks from setting up in parking impacted areas of the city, which includes nearly all of Downtown, Central Long Beach, the coastline and parts of North and West Long Beach.
The report from Wise said that if the council seeks to limit where food trucks can operate, including banning them from certain parts of the city to benefit brick-and-mortar restaurants, the city will have to justify those rules by showing that food truck operations would cause a public safety issue.
The report listed multiple attempts by the city of Los Angeles over the past few decades to limit food truck operations that were shot down by the courts.
However, San Diego was successful in using a shortage of parking to justify its ban on food trucks operating in its beachfront communities, central business district and Gaslamp Quarter, where trucks are only allowed with special event permits.
Long Beach could also look at requiring food truck operators to apply for other permits to park in the city right of way and enter into agreements to ensure that truck operators properly clean the areas they use when they conclude sales for the day.
The city projects that an ordinance with new rules for food trucks could be back before the City Council for approval by spring 2023.
Town hall provides glimpse of potential changes to food truck regulations in Long Beach