For a long time, Chicagoans have begged the city to improve food truck legislation. We’ve patiently waited for such changes to be made, but it seems as though these pleas are falling upon apathetic ears.
Hey Mayor Emanuel, add this to your task list!
Currently, the law does not permit food trucks to prepare food on the truck; instead, food must be prepared in a kitchen that meets health code before being sent out for delivery/distribution on trucks. There are tons of easily-scalable obstacles that face the currently stunted Chicago food truck scene, yet the city is failing to eliminate these hindrances.
Why should the city alter food vendor legislation? We’re glad you asked.
- Fresher food Allowing food vendors to prepare food on the trucks means that we get fresher food. Win.
- City debt relief Regulating food trucks would likely mean that food from food trucks would be taxed like any other restaurant. This means that the city could easily generate some substantial income. It’s no secret that the city of Chicago is in debt and taking drastic measures to alleviate that burden. Why, then, would they not pluck the low-hanging fruit in front of them? In order for them to make some dough off of food trucks, they’d have to loosen restrictions and allow food trucks to operate as mobile restaurants.
- More trucks, more variety Some food simply isn’t good if it’s not eaten shortly after being prepared. This means that there are likely tons of awesome food trucks waiting in the wings until they can hand you food that’s hot off the grill. If you pair this with our previous point, this means that the amount of money food trucks can infuse into the local economy would grow exponentially.
- Maintain our culinary rock star reputation Chicago is proud of being regarded as a culinary Mecca. Building upon our previous point (notice a snowball effect happening?), Chicago would undoubtedly premier food trucks that rival some of our best restaurants. This would further solidify our reputation as culinary genii. Foodies come from far and wide to dine at Chicago restaurants, and these same people would likely revel in the opportunity to eat Michelin-level cuisine from a trendy truck. I smell food truck tours a-brewin’…
- Support the local economy When people buy their lunch from food trucks instead of McDonalds or Chipotle, for example, their dollars are recycled back into the local economy, enriching the whole community.
We urge each of you reading this to send an e-mail to your alderman saying that you want legislation to be changed. You may think this is futile, but my alderman has been amazingly responsive to a myriad of issues I’ve e-mail him about, so they’re definitely listening. Not sure who your alderman is? Find out here. Not feeling up to drafting an e-mail? No worries, copy and paste this one we’ve drafted up so it will take you under a minute to aid in helping the food truck community.
There are many more reasons why lifting legal obstacles would be beneficial to us all. Tell everyone below in the comments area why you think lawmakers should take action to allow food trucks to thrive.
POLL: If the city let food trucks prepare fresh food on-site but would tax that food, would you frequent these trucks: MORE, LESS, THE SAME.
Photo by juggernautco on Flickr, used with permission under Creative Commons 2.0
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