As Spokane looks ahead to warmer months and global soccer celebrations this summer, the city is trying to make it easier to operate a food truck. But local permitting regulations may not be the biggest barriers to small businesses.
When it’s warm outside, you’re in a crowd, you’re catching live music or pregaming that night’s match, food from a truck just seems right.
That’s at least what council member Sarah Dixit was thinking when she started working with the mayor’s office to try to make it easier to operate a food truck in Spokane.
“So this project was kind of born out of wanting to look ahead to warmer months—which hopefully come sooner rather than later," she said at a recent committee meeting. "Also, getting ahead of a lot of the fun summer things that we have in Spokane, including like the FIFA fan zone. We'll have a lot of folks coming into town. So really wanting to make sure we can make sure folks can have fun in our city.”
City policy advisor Adam McDaniel says food truck code hasn’t been updated since 2014, when food trucks were just coming on the scene. That decades-old code isn’t exactly friendly.
“These are small businesses that are operating in our community," he said. "Let's make it actually possible for them to operate and thrive in the city.”
Dixit and McDaniel are proposing a few changes to city code. One of the biggest ones would be eliminating the need for food trucks to get a city permit.
That’s raising flags for council members like Michael Cathcart.
“There should be an absolute requirement to have a permit," Cathcart said at committee. "If you want to waive the fee, fine. I have no issue with waiving the fee. But require a permit so we can hold people accountable for actions that are not being addressed appropriately.”
Food Safety program manager Jessica Martin told SPR that food trucks have to get permits from both the health district and Labor & Industries to make sure they’re running their businesses safely and properly.
There are over 100 successfully permitted food vendors through Spokane’s health district. But that doesn’t cover everyone you might see.
“Unpermitted food vendors are increasingly more and more widespread throughout Spokane, Washington, nationally. We're hearing about them all over the country, honestly," Martin said.
Martin says it can be difficult for the public to tell who’s permitted because permits are typically inside the truck. Businesses are supposed to have their paperwork nearby, though, so she says customers could ask to see it if they’re curious.
Environmental health specialist Alyson Wiley also noted that the health district can only permit carts and trucks. Pop up tents and tables are only legal if they’re associated with an event.
“So pretty much automatically, if you see someone in a pop-up tent in middle of the night in a parking lot, there's not even a legal way to permit that," she told SPR.
In addition to food regulations, health district permits also require sanitary trash and waste water disposal, which should keep litter and garbage off the streets.
But the organization doesn’t have much authority to enforce their rules.
“We are able to issue closure notices to those without permits," Martin said. "We can issue a fine to those without permits. However, if we can't determine who they are or we can't force them to tell us who they are, we can't take possession of any of their property. We can't discard their food. And they tend to operate during hours that we aren't operating.”
The city could help enforce issues if it stays a permitting body.
“You take away the permit, you take away a lot of your authority to enforce," Cathcart said.
The thing is, the city isn’t enforcing what’s on the books right now.
“We have five mobile food vendors' licenses right now," McDaniel said. "So we have a regulatory licensing program that is not working.”
McDaniel wonders, if the city isn’t spending the time or resources to enforce its own rules, why have them? Maybe eliminating unnecessary code and the $60 fee for a city permit could encourage more food trucks to get in the game.
But all this paperwork discussion could be missing the point entirely. Besides licensing, food trucks need one other major thing:
“Usually they operate along with a commissary kitchen so that they can do that advanced prep and storage and dishwashing at the commissary kitchen," Martin said.
It is very difficult and expensive to create a food truck that meets Washington’s standards for food prep and clean up. That forces businesses to use indoor, rentable commercial kitchens. Those are expensive and scarce, especially in Eastern Washington.
Without a change to state law or more of those permanent off-street spaces, Spokane may not see a lot more legal vendors on the sidewalk.
