COLUMBUS, Ohio – After more than a year, Columbus City Council is ready to consider new rules governing the operation of the fast-growing mobile food business in the city.
At a City Hall hearing scheduled for Wednesday night (5:00 p.m.), Development Committee chair Michelle Mills will listen to comments and talk about a proposal to license and regulate food trucks, food trailers, pushcarts, ice cream vendors and other mobile food operations in the city.
The new legislation would also permit vendors to sell from the public right-of-way and it establishes requirements for those operations.
City officials began meeting in November with vendors and other businesses with the intention of coming up with a system for licensing food trucks and allow them to set up in the public right-of-way for longer than 15 minutes.
A pilot program begun last year required inspections and set up specific locations where the trucks can park. At a hearing in May, operators complained about the “first come, first served” parking rules, which they said could put some of them out of business. The program began in June 2013 and ended in December 2013.