On a Roll

The City Council has labeled three parking spaces near the Plaza—one along Lincoln Avenue and two on the north side of Palace Avenue—where mobile food vendors can sell their wares, effective June 8.

Before going out and purchasing a step van, a giant food steamer and a box of frozen tamales and rolling up to the neighborhood Little League game to make some bank, there are some basic guidelines that budding (and perhaps some existing) mobile food vendors should keep in mind. First, food-truck owners/operators, just like restaurants, need to obtain and display a valid food establishment permit issued by the state of New Mexico's Environment Department ($200), and it must be renewed yearly. This requires an inspection of the business and verification that all food items are being prepared and transported in accordance with state health standards. Second, an annual vehicle-vendor fee of $100, plus any resulting fire-inspection fees, must be paid. Vehicles used for vending also need to be licensed and insured as defined by the state's Motor Vehicle Division.

As long as vendors are legally parked in a public parking spot, and they don't park within a 150-foot radius of a brick-and-mortar restaurant during its regular hours (without the owner's permission), they can basically manage their own locations and times of operation—as long as they move their vehicle every three hours. The Plaza spaces, however, are only reserved for food trucks from 6 pm to 2:30 am, and it's first-come, first-served. A separate license is required from the city, and the three-hour-at-a-time rule also applies to these vendors, as do regular parking fees for the spaces provided.

Not everyone is happy with the new ordinance. Some downtown merchants and established business owners, including some pushcart vendors who pay much more annually to do exclusive business at a single downtown location, believe mobile vendors are being given an unfair advantage.

John Sheils, who manages the Chicago Dog Express cart on the Plaza, says the permitting structure seems "off balance," because he pays $3,000 for his cart, and mobile vendors in the parking spots pay just $100. "We're down here mostly during the day anyway, so food trucks wouldn't really affect our bottom line that much. It's the fees that are killing us," he says.

The permit for the Chicago Dog Express cart is up for renewal in July, and the owners have decided not to pursue it. "June will be our last month on the Plaza," Sheils says, "but the Cerrillos Road location will definitely still be around. We just finally got priced out of the space downtown."

Roque Garcia, whose Roque's Carnitas stand has been a fixture on the Plaza since the late 1980s, is also less worried about competition than he is about the permitting scale. "If you ask me," he says, "those food trucks aren't going to make any money down here anyway. There are going to be even more food carts on the Plaza this summer, and it's too much effort to stock your truck without the guarantee of a space. That's going to get really old and expensive for them really fast. They should consider themselves lucky they're not spending $3,000 to find that out."

It remains to be seen how three parking spaces only available to vendors after 6 pm will impact downtown's established restaurant and retail landscape. In the spirit of healthy competition, and in keeping with the overall desire of both city government and most established merchants to attract more diverse tourist and resident dollars to the Plaza area (especially during the shoulder season), things are moving forward with an understanding that the ordinance can always be altered down the road.

City officials hope they have found a way to undo decades of antiquated rules regarding when, where and how your eats meet the street. Yet, the revised ordinance may find vendors, city government and downtown business owners at odds right out of the gate.

Castro, who closes her business at 5 pm in the summer, is also worried about hygiene. A lack of adequate public restrooms in the downtown area forces many vendors to use the facilities at area businesses. "I can't help but wonder where these new vendors are going to be going to the restroom and washing their hands after 6 pm. I let cart vendors use my facilities during the day, because it's the right thing to do—I won't deny someone the bathroom—but it's still costing me money, literally, down the drain…It's not just a money issue, though. It's a health issue for food-truck workers as well as their customers."

In much larger municipalities, food-truck owners are fairly competent at self-regulation. Vendors in cities like New York, New Orleans and Los Angeles are willing to work together to keep things rolling smoothly. In Santa Fe, it's a whole new ballgame—one with a much smaller playing field and a very different set of rules. And that may be for the best. If you consider that in San Antonio, there are different mobile-vendor laws and certifications for selling ice cream than there are for selling sandwiches, and that vendors there must park a full 300 feet away from a brick-and-mortar restaurant, Santa Fe's ordinance might be considered a blank canvas. And you don't see many of those downtown anymore.

Santa Fe Reporter