An ordinance drafted by Oak Park village staff to protect the interests of brick-and-mortar restaurants was rejected by the village board this week.
The ordinance would’ve blocked food trucks from operating within 250 feet of a brick-and-mortar restaurant “selling of the same category of food or drink,” according to village documents. The lopsided vote at the July 22 board meeting followed a disjointed discussion on the matter, with Village President Vicki Scaman telling her colleagues that she felt they weren’t understanding the limited scope of the ordinance they voted against.
After the vote, she had no interest in seeing another version of the ordinance back at the table — at least not any time soon.
“With the number of things we have coming up on our agenda I don’t think I want to see this again,” said Scaman, who was the only one to vote in favor of passing the proposed ordinance. “We are moving on, and no, I don’t want to see it again.”
The proposed ordinance followed a March 18 discussion on food truck regulations brought to the board by former trustees Ravi Parakkat and Lucia Robinson, who pushed for a conversation on the topic after hearing from a local restaurant owner who said a food truck had been poaching their customers.
“Simply what we’re doing is responding to the board’s direction to bring it back,” said Village Manager Kevin Jackson.
In March, the board heard comments from Karla Linarez, owner of Tacos ‘76 on Madison Street, who said that her business had been disrupted when a taco truck parked a few feet from her shop’s front door. Linarez said that when she complained to the truck’s owner, they told her they weren’t breaking any rules laid out in the village code.
Village staff told the board that Linarez’s business is no longer experiencing issues with that food truck. They said one other taco restaurant had experienced the same situation in 2020, but that was the only other incident brought to the village’s attention.
Mobile food vendors operating in Oak Park currently only have to follow parking laws, pass health inspections and pay the business license fee to serve customers in the village. With Parakkat and Robinson no longer on the board, there wasn’t much interest in applying stricter regulations.
Board newcomers Jenna Leving-Jacobson and Derek Eder both said that they weren’t convinced that business owners are having enough problems with food trucks to warrant new regulations.
“It seems like it adds restrictions, and does more harm than good,” Eder said. “We’re trying to curb a very small level of bad behavior that’s occurred over a number of years. It doesn’t seem justified to me.”
Trustee Cory Wesley made it clear during a few points in the discussion that his support for the ordinance melted when he considered how it could put restrictions on neighborhood ice cream trucks.
“I don’t want ice cream trucks in this, ice cream trucks are not food trucks — there’s a difference,” he said. “I don’t think ice cream trucks should be regulated under a food truck ordinance. No one is going to be concerned about an ice cream truck pulling up and taking their business. I’d like to see an exemption for ice cream trucks.”