Food trucks line up against proposed regulation from Metro Council

A number of Baton Rouge’s food truck operators were planning to be at City Hall this afternoon to tell the Metro Council Finance and Executive Committee they’re opposed to new regulations. Metro Councilman R.J. “Smokie” Bourgeois placed the item on the agenda. He says no specific incident triggered the proposed regulations, which would require food truck operators to get permission to park on private property and also make it illegal to serve food from a truck window that faces oncoming traffic. Pat Fellows, owner of Fresh food truck, says he and his fellow mobile vendors aren’t opposed to those two regulations, but are wary of what may follow. “Everybody I know in the food truck industry already gets permission to park on private property because they want to reach out to business owners to make their stops more successful,” says Fellows. “Everybody that I’ve talked to opposes this, not so much because of the ordinance itself, but because they feel these regulations could lead to more regulations.” The committee will be able to make a recommendation on the ordinance, but the full Metro Council will have the final say. The issue will likely appear on a Metro Council agenda in the coming weeks. —Steve Sanoski