Food truck owners are not impressed with the city’s food truck pilot project.
Ranya Abu Jaib and her husband Tarek Selek, who operate Dedo’s Food Truck, said they are now driving to Edmonton every morning because it’s too difficult for them to keep working in St. Albert.
“We are very unsatisfied,” said Abu Jaib.
The pilot project was created to deal with several requests from mobile vendors wanting to use city land to sell their products. The city has no regulations in place for mobile vendors, so the success of the project is meant to define the city’s future approach to creating regulations.
The project runs from May 1 to Oct. 31. It allows vendors to operate on four locations around the city. These are in Lacombe Park, the log cabin in Red Willow Park, Taché Street and the parking lot across from St. Albert Place.
When it created the project, the city said it would help the vendors co-ordinate between the four sites, said Abu Jaib. But when she asked the city for contact information for the other trucks, the city would not give provide the information.
“I asked them many times and we were given no answer,” she said.
Food trucks mostly operate on a tight schedule, serving lunch between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. They don’t have time to drive around and find a free spot, said Abu Jaib.
Project guidelines also said the sites would be clearly marked for vendor-use only. The city has put up signs but on several occasions the vendors arrived to find cars parked on the sites, she said.
They have now decided to go into Edmonton where they can reserve a spot to park. They still operate Dedo’s in St. Albert during special events, such as the farmers’ market on Saturday.
Abu Jaib said they are sad about leaving St. Albert during the week. Dedo’s was the city’s first food truck and “really they wanted to make it work.”
Other food truck owners are also not convinced by the pilot project. Rick from Rick’s Ribs (he wanted to keep his last name private,) said a lot of food trucks aren’t coming to St. Albert because the sites are not well placed.
He tried parking on three of the four spots but thinks only two of them create enough foot traffic to be profitable. The one in Lacombe Park, for example, is only busy on weekends, he said.
He also thinks the city intentionally placed the parking spots out of sight for customers. He has now reserved a private spot in the parking lot of Campbell Liquor Store. While he works by himself, he doesn’t think that other food trucks employing two or more people could make a living in the city.
“I can understand that if some business owners don’t want competition they don’t want me to set up next to a restaurant,” he said. “But providing four sites with no real traffic is not the most ideal situation for any food truck and I think that’s why they stay away.”
“They told me that they want food trucks here but I think the pilot program needs a lot more work.”
There are now five food trucks with a business licence in St. Albert, including Dedo’s and Rick’s Ribs. The Gazette was not able to contact the Punky Potato and Fab Food on Four for this story.
Felix Irnich, co-owner of DaVinci Gelato, said he tried one of the sites but it rained that day. He might try it again but for now he rented a private spot in the parking lot at St. Albert Centre.
Guy Boston, executive director for economic development, was not surprised to hear that the locations aren’t ideal and don’t offer much visibility. But the city has to balance business attraction with business retention, he said. There is also not much parking in the downtown, he said.
“We are trying to manage our existing downtown businesses who pay property taxes and they are permanent residents here against these guys that come in,” he said. “We want the added dynamics and vibrancy for the downtown but we also need to respect who we have here. So we try to find a happy medium.”
He added that some of the restaurants on Perron Street do not agree with sharing the road with food trucks. Asked if it would be different if the food truck owners opened a restaurant instead, Boston said it would because “they are an equal contributor to the downtown.”
“That’s the way the downtown businesses look at it,” he said.
He stressed that it is too early to jump to conclusions about the success of the project, or lack thereof. They will look at the feedback from food trucks and businesses once the pilot project ends and then consider whether anything needs to change, he said.
Joan Barber, manager of business retention and expansion with economic development, said that she expected the food trucks would communicate and “I believe to the best of my knowledge that business licensing did provide them with whatever was required for them to do that.”
She also said the city would move any vehicle parked on the sites if it blocked a food truck.
On its website, the city says the purpose of the mobile food truck guidelines is “to encourage and welcome food vendors in the community” and to provide regulations that allow them to operate on public land. Vendors are required to apply for a business licence, which costs $135, and abide by certain conditions, such as providing insurance and permits related to food handling.
In Edmonton, food trucks pay a licence fee of $220 per year and $111 a month for a vending permit (or $11 per day). Food trucks can also apply to set up in a specific location.
The city’s planning service centre then partners with other city departments, such as parks and transportation, to ensure that food trucks can operate in that location, said Sharon Henry, manager of operations. Food trucks are prohibited from setting up closer than 20 metres to any restaurant serving the same kind of food.
Henry said there are now 50 food trucks officially licensed in Edmonton. She added that trucks have operated in the city for at least 10 years and are quite popular.
“They bring a lot of vitality to city life and we have our rules … and everyone is really good at abiding by those rules,” she said, referring to rules such as trucks cleaning their site before leaving, removing any garbage and not setting up chairs.
She added that the city deals with one or two appeals from restaurants a year, “which is pretty good, I think.”
“Overall, people, they understand we are living in a free market with that sort of competition,” she said.
