Photo: Dania Maxwell/The Chronicle
Supervisor Scott Wiener‘s two-year crusade of making the peace between food trucks and the city of San Francisco (and its brick and mortar restaurants, schools and so on) appears to reaching a successful conclusion.
Yesterday, the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee met and considered Wiener’s latest proposal. With no notable objections or complaints, the full Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on the legislation at next Tuesday’s meeting.
Don’t expect to see a Stouffer’s truck around downtown San Francisco.
The theme that was echoed throughout the hearing was that the proposal was a negotiation that is leaving both sides slightly dissatisfied. However, nearly everyone who spoke before the committee acknowledged that the new proposal addresses many of the failings of the current legislation.
The most notable change, especially from the restaurant perspective, would be a 75-foot ban zone around brick-and-mortar restaurants; Wiener did say that they will consider a provision that could allow the restaurants to waive the ban if they preferred.
The city’s formula retail law would also be applied to food trucks; so there shall be no Burger King trucks roving the Mission, which could affect larger companies like The Melt. Other new rules include allowing the MTA to issue parking tickets to food trucks; and reducing the food truck ban surrounding schools to 500 feet for middle schools and 750 feet for high schools, though the San Francisco Unified School District representative at the hearing said 1,000 feet is preferable for Mission, John O’Connell, and Galileo high schools.
Rob Black, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, spoke in support of the legislation, calling it a “mixed bag” but a “great improvement over existing regulations.”
“It has been an interesting couple years in conversation,” he said at the hearing. “You don’t want to compromise your principles but you want to have a principled compromise.
Off the Grid honcho Matt Cohen also spoke at the hearing — and perhaps a bit surprisingly, he also voiced his support of the legislation that arose from “a very earnest two years of effort.”
Cohen spoke from the mobile vending perspective, and expressed his hope that the new proposal will remove the subjectivity of what food trucks can and can’t do. He also added that he is hopeful that the changes can help streamline the permit process.
“Hopefully this will be an improvement over existing legislation,” Cohen said.