After a long debate in Council chambers Monday evening (May 8), council chose to defer a bylaw which will govern food truck operations.

The Mobile Food Vendor Bylaw is to provide regulatory framework that will enable mobile food vendors to operate safely within the town.

One of the sticking points for council has to do with fees charged to not only our two local mobile food vendors but what costs should apply to trucks that come into town for events.

 

Town of Cochrane Administration is proposing:

A One Time Fee Development Permit (Operation Base) $ 250.00 *for local trucks only

Mobile Food Vendor Permit $ 200.00 *(although not clearly stated in the bylaw, it was implied/believed this fee was for any food truck local or non local)

Requires a Renewal As prescribed in the Business Licence Bylaw 

 

While council was in agreement that non local food trucks should pay something to protect our local mobile vendors, the magic number was difficult to pin down.

Councillor Mary Lou Eckmeier says the town needs to build a good bylaw with a purpose, not one that twists and bends without long term goals. Eckmeier is proposing to retain the development permit fee and business licence, but eliminate the $200 vendor permit, and instead introduce a day rate for out of town trucks who come to one off events or pay a more costly daily operational permit if they choose.

Councillor Morgan Nagel struggled with the idea, period. Nagel wondered why a food truck would be required to pay three separate fees in order to be operational to begin with.

"I am having a really hard time understanding why we need this. There is really no other example of this in Cochrane where we have people get three different forms of licensing."

Nagel says he would rather see a much simpler bylaw come forward which would just govern and regulate food truck operations next to a restaurant. 

"It would be a much easier system than having this program where we register every single food truck with the town and then even event planners have to register their food trucks...it sounds like a lot of work for almost no benefit."

While administration is trying to develop an even playing field between local and out of town trucks, Nagel says do away with it all together.

"When I look at these regulations, I always like to look at it from the perspective of if there is really no clear need from it...if it is a really big maybe, it should just be no. We have so many regulations, so many permits, so much paperwork; if there isn't a very clear benefit to something, I don't understand why we would do it."

Council chose option two to postpone the bylaw and bring it back to the table at a later date.

READ MORE:

Food Truck Bylaws Are in the Works