Midtown Lunch

Photo courtesy of Eater

I have to admit, when Mayor Bloomberg’s office submitted a letter in opposition to Council Member Jessica Lappin’s proposed anti-food truck law, I was pretty surprised.  There is no question that food trucks are hated by the rent paying business owners in New York City, and if there is one thing you can always count on with Bloomberg- it’s siding with the rent paying business owners.  Well, it turns out the Mayor’s support was in fact too good to be true.   On Friday morning Bloomberg spoke out against food trucks on his radio show:

“The Health Department does not have the staff to go and do it the way [Lappin] wants, but we’re trying to find another way to accomplish it because she is right… Moving stores into the streets is not what the streets were designed for, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We are moving stores into the streets and they sit there and they park and they take up parking places and they block traffic.”

Really?  But that’s not what you said on Wednesday!

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SVP Collecting Signatures in front of the truck in Lappin’s district on 86th Street

Yesterday we live blogged the City Council hearing dedicated to discussing the anti-food truck legislation being introduced that would revoke a permit of any food truck that received 3 parking tickets in a 12 month period.  Vendors turned out in force, along with food truck advocates like the Street Vendor Project, to plead their case… explaining how this law would effectively put them out of business.  But the biggest moment of the hearing came when the Mayor’s office submitted a letter expressing their opposition to the legislation.  You should read the entire letter, although it mostly says what we’ve been saying for a week… even though food trucks need to be good citizens, and should be held accountable when they break parking laws, the penalties from this particular law are too punitive, and would be very difficult to administer.

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Right now, the City Council is holding a hearing to discuss the proposed Anti-vendor law.  Miss Softee (follow her on Twitter) is there, and will be sending us live reports from the scene…  you can read about the proposed law here.

9:45am – I’m in. security is prepping for a massive influx… they will close the doors once the room meets capacity, and it may fit 50-60 people.

10:07am – As people assemble, the few council members currently present shuffle a stack of papers for those that wish to testify. Lappin has yet to arrive.

10:08am – Based on what I can see, Eddie’s Pizza, Wafels and Dinges, Van Leeuwen, Frites and Meats, Cupcake Stop, NYC Cravings, as well as many lesser known vendors are here.

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Want to support the food trucks in person against the proposed City Council law that will effectively put all food trucks out of business? The hearing is tomorrow (Wednesday, June 16th) in the 16th floor hearing room at 250 Broadway at 10am. Can’t be there in person? Please contact your city council member and let them know that food truck lovers will campaign against any city council member who votes for this unfair law that unfairly singles out food trucks for harsher punishments.

There was some concern in the comments last week that the Red Hook Ballfield Vendors, who were forced to move their operation into trucks before the start of the 2008 season, might be affected by the Anti-Vendor Law being considered by the New York City Council this week.  The ballfield vendors are no strangers to being on the brink of extinction, but according to Exec Director Cesar Fuentes they will not be affected by this particular law.

Our vendors don’t get parking tickets based on their vending location at the RH ballfields… still, I think this proposed law is disproportionately punitive & harsh towards all food truck vendors in NYC. While there should definitely be appropriate measures to address certain cases where food trucks are illegally parked, abuse/disobey public regulations, or pose a health risk to the public, it should be also kept in mind that this is the livelihood of all hard working entrepreneurs & their employees whose incomes depend on operating these trucks. Inherent to city life is the fact that we would inadvertently get a parking ticket or more. In fact, this is such a normal pattern in big cities like NYC, Chicago, or LA and there are even parking ticket quotas expected of all traffic officers to be met every month. Often times, a food vendor will have no choice than to pay a fine in order to conduct business in the city. This is not only true for small vendors, but also for large companies like UPS or FEDEX who receive traffic tickets in massive quantities & whose summonses you could see sticking out of windshields on a daily basis.

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You are so right. FOOD TRUCKS are the real problem…

The backlash against City Council Member Jessica Lappin’s new food truck law generated a lot of press yesterday, but sadly it doesn’t seem to be deterring her (in fact, she seems to be relishing it.)  Lappin represents a district on the Upper East Side, and according to DNA Info she was moved to propose the law by a Halal Truck that parks on 86th Street and Lexington from 10am to 11pm. She also complained about a “dumpling truck” (Rickshaw parks on the UES on Fridays for a few hours in the afternoon) and a taco truck.  The sad thing is, most popular trucks in the city don’t park in the same spot for 13 hours straight- but Lappin’s law punishes everybody, by revoking the license of any truck that gets 3 parking tickets in a year.

But what bothered us the most yesterday was her comments to CBS TV.  When confronted with the facts that food trucks represent an incredibly small portion of the commercial vehicles who park illegally every day, and asked why she doesn’t go after FedEX and Fresh Direct as well her response was “simple – she says no one is complaining about those other companies.”

Actually, that’s about as untrue and misinformed as her telling the press that this law will not put food trucks out of business.  I wrote her a later to address these issues, hoping for a response.

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Yesterday, as expected, the New York City council officially proposed the law that would revoke the permit of a food truck if it gets three parking tickets. As we explained on Tuesday, not only does this law unfairly punish food truck vendors- who represent a tiny percentage of the commercial trucks that park in this city- but it will effectively end vending from a food truck in this city (the food carts are not effected by the law.) Yesterday the Wall Street Journal blog interviewed Council Member Lappin (the sponsor of the proposed law) and she “disputed the notion that food trucks would be put out business by her proposal. ‘They have to abide by the rules, that’s the deal,’ she said. ‘They are supposed to be mobile.'”

Miss Lappin’s belief that this law will not put *all* food trucks out of business shows her lack of understanding of how street vending works in this town.

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Yesterday the news broke that two New York City Council members were preparing to introduce a law that would revoke the permits of any food truck that received 3 parking tickets within a 12 month period. We claimed that the law would effectively put every food truck out of business… and for anybody who thought that may have been hyperbole, it’s worth taking a look at the reactions of food trucks around the city. The twittering food trucks in particular have started to mobilize their fans in an effort to block this law. Oleg from the Schnitzel & Things truck sent this to me last night:

Schnitzel & things is devastated by the news that this councilwoman would introduce such an unfair bill. We as vendors are constantly being marginalized and this is just another attempt at further clamping down on the food truck industry. We bring a diversity and a sense of fun that the city should embrace rather than push us further and further away. If this bill passes, it will mean the end of food trucks in new York. It will mean countless families that depend on this business will now have to be out of a job.

More reactions from vendors are after the jump.

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