N.O. Food truck owners, City Council, discuss easing regulations

Food truck operators in New Orleans had their first face-to-face meeting with City Council members Tuesday in their yearlong effort to persuade them to ease regulations for mobile vendors, The Times-Picayune reports. The city’s licensing covers the gourmet food trucks that have popped up since Hurricane Katrina as well as vendors who sell anything from produce to snowballs. The regulations, more than a half-century old, have been updated sparingly over the years; food-truck operators and city officials agree that as the industry has changed, the restrictions have become outdated. Mobile vendors want to see the number of permits issued annually rise, the time a truck can stay in one spot extended, and the allowed hours of operation expanded. No one expressed opposition Tuesday to the general idea of loosening the rules. Instead, much of the talk focused on how the city could give the burgeoning industry a boost. The city issues up to 100 mobile food vending permits annually, and those who already have permits get first dibs, making it difficult for newcomers to break into the food truck business. In Baton Rouge, a push to increase regulations on food truck vendors earlier this year failed. Read more about the New Orleans’ food truck vendors’ efforts to ease regulations here.