If you visit Underground Atlanta on any given Wednesday afternoon, you might be pleasantly surprised by the aroma and diversity of the food on display at Upper Alabama St.
From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the afternoon each week, about half a dozen food trucks line up to whip together quick, delicious meals for passing tourists, downtown workers on their lunch breaks and Georgia State students in between classes.
Yet this is one just a handful of places where these trucks are lawfully able to set up amid a municipal bureaucratic regime that rivals even Washington at its worst.
Indeed, though the food truck industry in Atlanta has grown leaps and bounds in recent years, a confusing and conflicting set of state and local ordinances have caused tremendous problems for these local businesses.
Last year, for example, Atlanta Police shut down a slew of trucks off of Howell Mill at the aptly-named Food Truck Park – the first permanent location in the city open seven days a week for trucks and mobile vendors.
Interestingly enough, however, none of the trucks shut down were in violation of any food-safety or health codes. All of the shuttered businesses had valid licenses, too. But they were closed nonetheless.
The crackdown was based on the city police’s enforcement of an obscure state law requiring “mobile food services” to cycle between a maximum of two locations stipulated by permit, meaning trucks would have to reapply – and spend hundreds of dollars in the process – each time they wanted to set up in a new location.
The move came as a surprise to many truck owners because the City Council of Atlanta actually relaxed many of its mobile vending rules in 2011 – following a trend of other major cities trying to attract small businesses.
But where does that leave us today?
Since then, quibbles over the county’s outdated approval process regarding health safety have continued to slow down permits for sales on private property. And you can forget about public sales.
For reasons too complex to get into, vendors on public lands – mostly private sellers with small carts – were effectively charged out of existence due to an exclusive contract the city signed in 2009 with a Chicago-based company granting them a monopoly over spaces available to lease out on public land, according to Creative Loafing.
However, after a negative verdict in a lawsuit challenging the city of Atlanta’s authority on this deal and several years later,Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration has remained stubbornly recalcitrant in issuing new permits to street vendors to sell on public lands, prompting a contempt of court hearing last week.
So let’s recap: Conflicting and out-dated legislation on the local and state levels have created a confusing bureaucratic regime that actively limits the growth of local food trucks, a thriving community of small businesses, on private property,
But not only that. On public places, the mayor has actively gone against the rulings of the judicial system explicitly granting street vendors the right to hawk their wares, much less allow food trucks the right to set up shop on the sidewalk edge. He even made national news in the process.
However, in places like Portland and Los Angeles, food trucks have become common staples of downtown cuisine – a mark of the city’s diversity, vibrance and culture.
Sadly, based on its action, the City of Atlanta appears to not be interested in any of that.
It’s time to change that. The city needs to focus on making Atlanta an easier place to live and play, starting with food trucks.
