But all that may be about to change. The city recently unveiled a proposal for a new mobile food policy that would greatly expand opportunities for local food truck operators. In theory, your favorite Fruitvale taco truck would now be able to set up shop on, say, Piedmont Avenue. And it would become much easier for individual food trucks to get permission to pull up to a metered parking space in Oakland to do business, the way they do in other cities that have a vibrant street food culture.
[jump] Gail Lillian, proprietor of Liba Falafel and a pioneer of Oakland’s recent gourmet food truck movement, said she was impressed that the proposal doesn’t “over-legislate the process,” forcing mobile food entrepreneurs to jump through unnecessary hoops. In an email, Lillian wrote, “Oakland has written a permit process that treats food trucks like any other legitimate business, deserving of opportunity, instead of treating them like entities that should apologize for their business models.”
That said, Lillian also acknowledged that Oakland is very late to the game in terms of creating a comprehensive food truck policy. (Indeed, the Express has been documenting the often painfully slow process since at least 2011.)
Mobile food advocates might argue that the current proposal is some ten years overdue, given that the pilot program that provided legal sanction for the Fruitvale district’s vibrant pushcart and taco truck scene — but restricted it to a narrow strip of land along International Boulevard — hasn’t expanded to other parts of Oakland since its creation in 2001. And while “food pods” — i.e., clusters of three or more trucks that convene weekly at an approved location — have been legal in Oakland on a limited basis since 2012, you can count on one hand the number that have really caught on. Contrast that with a city like Portland, which has nearly fifty active food pods.
It’s not for a lack of desire. For the past five years, officials in Oakland’s Planning Department have spoken of their intent to create a permanent, all-encompassing mobile food policy for the city, and have at various points conducted surveys designed to kickstart that process. And yet prior to this new draft policy, there had been little tangible progress.
Devan Reiff, the city planner who was tapped last year to spearhead the development of a new policy, said there have been many reasons for the delay. City planners working on the mobile food policy kept getting pulled off the job to deal with higher-priority matters — the city’s various neighborhood specific plans, in particular. In addition, planners kept getting bogged down over the lack of any viable mechanism for the enforcement of mobile food regulations — beyond the unlikely prospect of dumping another responsibility on the city’s overstretched police department. Under the new proposal, the task of enforcing food truck regulations will be assigned to newly budgeted positions in the City Administrator’s Office, Reiff explained.
The new policy would also mean that churro carts and taco trucks in Fruitvale would now have a viable way to expand their operations beyond East Oakland — either with a setup similar to what you typically find in Fruitvale (i.e., in private lots) or, again, parked at a meter. And hot dog cart-style food trailers would be allowed to set up on public sidewalks for the first time.
The city’s food pod program would also be expanded, allowing each individual pod organizer to run five different weekly pods (instead of just two). What Reiff described as “Portland-style” food pods — a group of trucks or pushcarts set up on a permanent basis on private property —would also be permitted. You can read the entire draft proposal (in English and Spanish) on the city Planning and Building Department’s mobile food vending webpage.
too restrictive and “nitpicky.” Hester took particular issue with the blanket restriction against food trucks selling alcohol, which she said could be a deciding factor in whether she continues to operate her Lake Merritt food pod.
Reading through the proposal, it’s easy to see how certain provisions — the alcohol restriction, for instance — might have been included to head off opposition from local bar and restaurant owners, who have at times been wary of, if not outright opposed to, the additional competition that an expanded food truck scene would represent.
Reiff put it more tactfully: “The streets of Oakland have many users, and we’re just trying to balance those different users.”
Mobile food entrepreneurs, brick-and-mortar business owners, taco enthusiasts, and various other stakeholders will have until February 19 to submit preliminary feedback on the city’s draft proposal by emailing Reiff at [email protected]. After that, Reiff will write a draft of the actual ordinance, which he hopes will be ready to be reviewed by the planning commission in late April or May. From there, the law would need to be discussed at two city council meetings before getting passed into law.
