Food Vendors

It seems that the City Council decided that food vendors, which were licensed with all the required permits, were suddenly unsafe and a serious problem, so they banned them. I personally suspect that the friends and campaign contributors who owned businesses in a building wanted those food vendors removed. I heard statements such as "leveling the playing field" and that the locations that they sold from were "unsafe".

The leveling of the playing field is quite interesting. Does this mean that if I want to open up a place that the City is going to increase the taxes on all the existing places so that their overhead and mine are the same? If I bought a property, the cost is going to be much higher today than it was many years ago. This is especially true if I want a place which has easy access, such as near the freeway. The cost to build a new building is also going to be more expensive. All the equipment is going to be more expensive as well. So, just what is the City going to do to help me compete with existing businesses? Nothing, because I am not their friend and I am not donating money to their campaigns.

While mobile food vendors don't have as high of an overhead, they are far more limited in where and when they can sell their food. Most are in places that people might buy from them if they happen by, but generally would not go out of their way to stop by, unlike a place that is in a building.

It was said that the Hot Dog trailer on Easy St. was unsafe. I walked past there and don't have any idea of how that could be true. All of the customers were on the sidewalk, away from driveways. If it is unsafe to be on the sidewalk, then something needs to be done about that. Of course, when I brought that up at the City Council meeting there was no response.