When City Council member Reggie Brown proposed a draft bill to regulate food trucks, the blowback from the mobile restaurateurs and supporting community was immediate.
Today, Brown and at least 25 others will review the draft ordinance line by line — adding parts here, crossing out parts there — to craft what he calls “landmark legislation” on the issue.
“I’m giving them a chance to put it in their hands,” Brown said Tuesday. “The goal is to create legislation that we can all live with.”
Any issues that generate large discussion will be set aside for future meetings.
Brown said he isn’t anti-food truck. Instead, he said he’s concerned about public safety and accountability.
“It scares me to think we can have a food truck industry and we don’t know who is out there,” he said, providing an example of if people caught hepatitis C from one of the vendors but officials being unable to locate the source.
He also said he’s aware of concerns brought up by Jacksonville Beach senior planner William Mann during a recent food truck debate in that community.
Specifically, his concerns that Jacksonville “is not clear on legislation and rules concerning food trucks and enforcement is erratic,” according to Mann’s research that reviewed policies and concerns in Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and other Florida and national cities.
“I can’t ignore that,” Brown said of the Jacksonville notes.
Brown’s draft prohibited the vendors from operating past midnight and from operating within 300 feet of a restaurant, among other rules. He said he expects conversation this afternoon to focus on those rules, which he’s open to change.
He said the criticism aimed at him about the legislation mostly has died down when people realized he wasn’t against the industry. But, brick-and-mortar restaurants still have concerns, mostly Downtown.
“We don’t have the foot traffic Downtown,” he said. “The perception is (food trucks) were taking away patrons.”
In response, Brown said he will separate the issue into citywide, special events and Downtown portions and ask the Downtown Investment Authority to handle the urban core area.
As for critics who say regulations snuff out the free market, Brown said the two businesses are part of the same industry but there are differences.
“We have to be fair … we are building our city with brick-and-mortar,” Brown said. “We will find a way to co-exist.”
The meeting starts at 3:30 p.m. in the Lynwood Roberts Room at City Hall.
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