Riverside’s village board has again discussed governing where and how food trucks can operate in town without reaching a full consensus.
At their Aug. 21 meeting, trustees were tasked with deciding whether food trucks should be able to obtain an annual mobile food license for regular operation within the village or if all trucks should be limited to operating with a special event license tied to a specific occasion.
Village Manager Jessica Frances said that, like any restaurant applying for a regular annual license to open for business, food trucks seeking an annual license would require village staff to review their operations, including where and when they plan to operate.
After then-Assistant Village Manager Ashley Monroe walked trustees through a list of possible locations where trucks could set up shop in Riverside, both downtown and along Harlem Avenue in the village’s B-1 commercial districts, the board seemed split on where to allow food trucks.
Trustee Cristin Evans said she felt the trucks should be excluded from downtown due to the loud noise their generators can make that could disrupt brick-and-mortar businesses in the area. Trustee Aberdeen Marsh-Ozga agreed, calling it a “question of scale” and saying downtown Riverside is geared more toward pedestrian infrastructure.
Trustee Elizabeth Kos disagreed, saying she felt the village should have the same standards for businesses regardless of whether they’re downtown or along Harlem Avenue.
Trustee Joseph Fitzgerald said he was against licensing food trucks annually in the first place and that he would prefer to move forward only with the special events model so Riverside can make exploratory steps without committing to a license schedule that might not work for the village.
Trustee Jill Mateo said she was “agnostic” on whether to limit food trucks by district but came out in support of the annual licensing model, referencing the agreement that has been reached by the owners of Rmarts at the corner of Longcommon Road and Harlem Avenue and Prime Tacos, a food truck that regularly operates out of the gas station’s parking lot. Both owners spoke in favor of the arrangement at one of Riverside’s initial discussions about food trucks.
“I think if the Rmarts owner were here, he would make the case, again, that it helps his business,” Mateo said.
Village President Doug Pollock agreed to set the matter aside for another meeting with the board’s mixed feedback, directing the discussion toward the topic of special events licenses. He said he felt the license would require the board to limit the number of times any truck can set up shop in town, in contrast with the village’s existing license, which has no such cap; otherwise, food truck operators could apply for a cheaper special event license to avoid the cost of an annual license.
Kos agreed and said the board would likely need to look at the fee structure for both kinds of licenses to ensure food truck owners can’t abuse a loophole to apply for special event licenses throughout the year and pay less money than for an annual license.
“I think this comes back to the question of, are we going to have the annual fee, in my mind, because if we’re not going to have an annual fee, then we can just do a limited number of days for a special event, and we’re done,” she said. “But if we want to say there’s a difference between a special event and somebody like at Rmarts, then we want to have a separate fee structure.”
After much back-and-forth discussion on the definition of a special event between members of the board and staff, Kos said she felt the village should pick a starting point to the best of its ability and be prepared to change the rules down the line if needed.
She emphasized that, to her knowledge, Prime Tacos has remained the only food truck interested in operating in Riverside even as the village board has discussed regulations over several months.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be diligent at first, but I think we can also revisit and say, ‘OK, we need to bring this in. This is not how we envisioned this going,’” she said.
Village Attorney Bob Pickrell said the board could roll out an initial set of regulations as a pilot program, “explicitly creating the expectation that we’re testing the waters to see what issues would come up.”
After about 45 minutes, Pollock ended the discussion “for the sake of time,” tabling it to a future meeting with the board’s lack of consensus and saying he would work with staff to address as many of the trustees’ remarks as possible the next time the item was brought forth.
