The Common Council held a public meeting yesterday during a Legislation Committee meeting about regulating food trucks and finally left a proposal on the table.
“What’s going to be done to protect those already in the (food) business?” asked Peter Gallivan who has a hot dog stand at High and Ellicott next to Buffalo General Hospital.
It’s a three-way dispute among an array of mobile vendors who are offering a much wider array of foods and the traditional boiled hot dog vendors and the building owners and restaurants who object to a food truck at their front doors.
Councilmembers were also told yesterday there is the complication of Buffalo Place assigning locations Downtown for food vendors.
“Who designates where they (food trucks) go: the city or Buffalo Place?” asked David Marotto of Dough Bois Pizza.
“I’ve complained a couple of times and kind of been ping-ponged back and forth and nothing has ever been resolved.”
Adding a twist to the discussion yesterday was the presence of Christina Walsh, Director of Activism and Coalitions for the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based libertarian litigation group with ties to the billionaire Koch Brothers.
“Protecting the public health and safety is a legitimate use of government power,” said Walsh during the hearing.
But she argued that any legislation protecting downtown restaurant owners and hot dog vendors would be “unconstitutional and not an appropriate use of government power.”
Councilmembers are studying the situation and a draft ordinance prepared by the lawyer for the newest food trucks.
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