SF dabbles with regulating street food

During my day job I think nonstop about federal financial regulation and maybe an occasional state legislative proposal. So it was refreshing today to experience something different and new to me- local lawmaking at its finest. This morning there was an important hearing at City Hall to discuss how to fix the outdated, confusing, inconsistent, and often illogical nature of San Francisco's mobile vending permit process which is currently a great barrier to many food entrepreneurs who have tried to come out from "underground".

There's been a ton of attention on the street food scene here- see NY Times- which has been blowing up for about a year with new carts like ours popping up all the time. And of course, street food has a long tradition beyond us foodies hawking our goodies in the park. The system needs to preserve old and new food businesses while fostering the new community of mobile food vendors.

The hearing allowed us to get an idea of what the Supervisors were thinking with regards to regulating street food. I came away with a positive impression of the city's intentions. You can read a couple good summaries of what happened here and here. It did not sound like they wanted to immediately crack down on flourishing enterprises. Supervisor Bevan Dufty instigated and led the meeting and promises to have a proposal within a couple months. Let's cross our fingers. I plan to get more up to date on the current regulatory structure for mobile food service and look forward to reading the proposed regulations when they are issued.

Some truly awesome people spoke on behalf of the street food vendor crew: Shakirah Simley who runs Slow Jams, Matt Cohen who runs SF Cart project, Robyn Sue who developed the amazing Smitten Ice Cream machine, Curtis Kimball whose got the famous Creme Brulee Cart, and Paula Tejada of Chile Lindo. I've been nothing but impressed and awed at the great community that we've recently joined. Within 36 hours they gathered hundreds of signatures in support of street food, written on fabulously designed postcards which were submitted at the hearing. It's a true community of very motivated and creative people who will definitely continue being very successful.