Seattle May Ease Rules for Food Trucks

Seattle city officials are considering relaxing the city's restrictions on street food vendors.

March 10, 2011

SEATTLE - Seattle city officials are discussing changing their restrictive laws governing food trucks, the Seattle Times reports.

The City Council is expected to review new legislation by the end of this month, with changes that would facilitate street food vendors setting up shop around Seattle??s neighborhoods.

"Urban neighborhoods are where we want our growth," said Gary Johnson, center-city coordinator for the Department of Planning and Development, which helped develop the proposal. "A street-food scene can help brand a neighborhood in a positive way."

The recommendations address sidewalk cart businesses and mobile food trucks and include expanding the type of food sidewalk vendors can sell and allowing food trucks to park curbside.

Sidewalk vendors are currently limited to selling coffee, popcorn, and hot dogs.

Under the proposed guidelines, "we're going to allow everything on the push cart except raw proteins," said Christopher Skilton, health and environmental investigator with the county health department.

However, all meat would have to be cooked fully beforehand at a licensed commissary kitchen, Skilton said.

As selling street food on a public street is currently prohibited, food truck owners must park at privately owned spaces.

However, to expand penetration in high-density urban areas, the Seattle Department of Transportation plans to designate zones where curbside vending would be allowed, pending acquisition of a street-use permit.

According to Skilton, interested vendors would have to undergo a rigorous vetting process by the health department, assessing refrigeration and heating systems, for instance, as well as hand-washing facilities.

The new legislation proposes a $146 base fee to park a truck in a new food zone - one of many fees under consideration. To appease brick-and-mortar restaurants, vendors must park at least 50 feet from any other food-service business, including convenience stores.

For more on mobile food trucks, see "On the Move" in the February issue of NACS Magazine.

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