The owners of the city's first and only food truck have long said that it would be easier for them to operate if they could park on city-owned land.
Theirs and other vendors' concerns have now been heard.
City administration is looking into the matter, along with other regulations regarding mobile vendors who want to set up shop in the city. On March 31, 2015 they will present city council with mobile vendor guidelines.
"It would be easier (to have regulations) because having a food truck is a mobile business. It's not like a restaurant," said Ranya Abu Jaib, co-owner of Dedo's Food Truck, in a previous interview. "A food truck, the nice thing about it is that you can move from place to place."
Need for regulations
At a recent council meeting, Guy Boston, director of economic development, said the city dealt with several requests from mobile vendors in the past. These not only included food trucks but also people selling Taber corn, flags, windshield repairs and newspapers.
Without regulations or guidelines in place, many of them had to be refused from doing business on city lands, he said. For now, mobile vendors can only operate on private property.
"There is a strong community desire for some strong guidelines as it relates to mobile vendors," he said. "It seems like everyone lands on food vendors but as you know we have others that are out there, the Taber corn and the flag guy."
Boston said his team has now met with the chamber of commerce and members of the Perron District to discuss guidelines. They also looked at regulations in other communities, such as Calgary, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.
Discussing small print
But the city may need more than business licenses for mobile vendors, said Coun. Gilles Prefontaine. He worries that allowing them to park anywhere in the city could lead to an influx of vendors in places such as the Perron District.
"How do we balance the volumes and obviously the other component is to balance that out in terms of not losing all of our parking downtown," he said.
Cheryle Wong, the city's business license inspector, said that some guidelines require vendors to pay a small fee for a vendor permit. These permits regulate where they park.
"We wouldn't have six food trucks set up on Perron Street," she said. "We would probably have two or three, depending on where we want to go and if that's the flavour of council."
Coun. Tim Osborne said he received a letter from one entrepreneur who was concerned how mobile vendors would affect downtown businesses. Wong said administration would not pursue any guidelines without public consultation.
Osborne further questioned the definition of mobile vendors, referring to a newspaper seller who may not fit in with the others. Wong said the current definition describes any vendor "that moves in on wheels or sets up on a temporary basis."
Administration will also consider guidelines for special events and how to handle mobile preachers, a request brought forward by Mayor Nolan Crouse.
"Certainly in the larger cities, you see people preaching with a microphone and a loudspeaker," he said.
