Cincinnati City Council is considering an ordinance that would authorize the city manager to prohibit food trucks from operating in certain locations during certain times.
It comes almost two months after City Manager Sheryl Long banned food trucks from operating Downtown and in Over-the-Rhine after 11 p.m. on weekends. Officials say the decision was necessary to address large crowds gathered at food truck locations that included some fights and other disturbances.
Current food truck restrictions
Long announced the new restrictions on food trucks Sept. 4, and they were enforced beginning Sept. 5.
Cincinnati Police Capt. David Schofield, District 1 commander, explained the concerns during City Council's Public Safety Committee meeting Tuesday morning.
"We were seeing large crowds that were forming around around these trucks in the streets and on the sidewalks in these areas," Schoefield said. "Oftentimes some members of the crowds would be intoxicated, so therefore we were seeing disorder, we were seeing fights and just a general sense of disorder in these zones on certain occasions."
Schofield says after the new restrictions went into effect Sept. 5, they've seen improvement.
Council member Anna Albi challenged Schofield and Interim Assistant City Manager John Brazina on why and how the decision was made.
"In terms of the actual data, how many incidents were there in terms of ... fights that were directly tied to food trucks, versus some of what I'm hearing is actually over-serving at bars and excessive alcohol?" Albi said. "What does the data look like?"
Schofield replied that CPD staff were still collecting and reviewing the data and it was not available. Albi said this presentation to City Council had been delayed twice already, so there was plenty of time to prepare.
"It's shocking to me that that data is not readily available for this conversation," Albi said. "How do we know what success looks like if we don't have the measure of the before versus the after?"
Brazina told Council members they did not communicate with any food truck vendors prior to enacting the new restrictions: "That was a failure on our end," he said.
Cincinnati Food Truck Association President Amy Flottemesch told WVXU the policy seems like a knee-jerk reaction.
"They're just kind of trying to throw things at the wall and see what sticks," she said. "Our biggest hope is just to kind of be able to negotiate or come to a compromise with the city ... [to] make it a win-win situation for everyone."
She says food trucks are not the cause of large rowdy crowds that require police response. Some vendors have said they expect to lose $3,000 to $9,000 in revenue by the end of the season because of the limited hours. Flottemesch adds there are other aspects of city law regarding food trucks she'd like to revisit.
Council member Scotty Johnson says he wants people to have late night food options, but, "We also want you to show up responsible; we want you to conduct yourselves as adults when it comes to after hours also so CPD is not playing babysitter."
Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney expressed concern about the impact on small businesses and said Council should hear directly from food truck vendors.
Albi expressed more direct criticism. "We want to put safety first, but this feels like a very broad decision and quickly implemented decision with not much research or consideration of alternatives."
What the ordinance would do
City Council approved new regulations for food trucks about two years ago, allowing a truck to set up in almost any parking space. Before that, mobile food vendors were severely limited to certain "food truck zones."
Current law prohibits a food truck from parking within certain areas, like a residential zoning district, spaces designated for disabled persons, or within a zone that requires a parking permit.
The proposed ordinance would add that a mobile food vendor may not park within "a parking zone or parking spaces during a time when parking or mobile food-vending operations are prohibited."
Current law already allows the city manager or her designee "to establish rules and regulations to provide for the safe, efficient, and orderly administration and enforcement" of city code. This is the authority by which Long enacted the new policy in September.
A city spokesperson told WVXU in a statement the ordinance is intended to clearly establish that the city manager's authority includes "the specific ability to create food truck zones" to prohibit mobile food-vending.
"Even though this step may be viewed as redundant, having more direct law should help to avoid disputes or confusion over the creation and enforcement of these zones," the statement says.
The ordinance would allow the city manager to prohibit food trucks anywhere in the city during certain periods of time, but Brazina told City Council there are no plans to do so outside of Downtown and Over-the-Rhine.
The ordinance will be back up for discussion in the Public Safety and Governance Committee in two weeks.
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