The village of Lexington is once again reviewing ordinance amendments that, if passed, could establish regulations associated with mobile food vending businesses like food trucks.
The peddler’s ordinance, first rescinded at a special meeting last June, has been updated to be more closely tied to event sponsors and police oversight.
Village officials are also looking at a mobile food vending policy tied to food trucks. Those vendors would be required to pay regular fees for a license with the village depending on their location.
The village will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 21, to hear comments on the proposed amendments to the peddler’s ordinance.
“All we’re really trying to do is provide an opportunity for food trucks to be in the village and define it a little better with peddlers,” said Mike Fulton, a village trustee and a member of the committee formed this year to work on the ordinances. “… I don’t think you’re going to please everybody. I think we did a pretty good job with simplifying the procedures.”
Changes in how mobile food vendors, including food trucks, can operate in the village include the following:
Lexington food truck vendors were not pleased by the proposed rules.
“Any language in this ordinance that relates to private property represents the destruction of that property’s value,” Deckerville resident and El Hombre Grande taco trailer owner Bretton Jones said in a Facebook message.
He said the law was made for business owners on Huron Avenue who don’t have space on their properties to accommodate vendors.
“They are using the government to destroy the property values of their competitors,” he said.
Taryn Strausser, who runs the food truck Top Dog with her mom, said Lexington wants to fee and regulate food trucks out of the village.
The people in the village support them, but the people on council don’t and want to “control the little guys” just because they’re not a brick and mortar establishment, she said.
Some people there don’t want food trucks because they think it takes business away from the other restaurants. However, Strausser thinks there’s enough business for everybody, especially with how a food truck is a grab-and-go kind of place which is good for a resort village like Lexington.
With all the troubles Lexington has given Top Dog, Strausser said it has discouraged them from doing business there.
“I feel like a community needs to come together and embrace a new business,” she said.
Earlier this year, village officials considered a revamped ordinance that expanded inclusion of peddlers, hawkers and solicitors definitions or entities that do business in public areas, as well as the licensing practice to allow them.
It was met with a shortlist of concerns from local residents and business owners at a June 13 special meeting. According to meeting minutes, multiple speakers were not in favor of allowing street vendors, such as food trucks, in competition with local businesses.
Ultimately, village council members rescinded the new ordinance.
Village President Kristen Kaatz was the only member to vote against the action. According to minutes, she had hoped not to exclude entities from coming to the community because of fear of competition.
The village’s committee that mulled over the rules included Village Manager Holly Tatman, zoning administrator Jerry Dawson, restaurant co-owner Cindy Gresock, Fulton and Village Council Trustee Dave Picot.
Gresock and her husband own Wimpy’s Place in Lexington. She said as a member of the committee she would rather not talk about the matter in a public forum, but she and her husband have no issue with mobile food vendors as they have had their own food truck for the past 12 years.
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Picot acknowledged the discussion had come from the “food truck phenomena,” adding, “food trucks are a new thing to Lexington.”
“We don’t want to discourage commerce-seekers. I think we’ve hit a general balance,” Picot said. “That was most definitely the aim at the committee that we take a balanced approach. Knowing in our community, and certainly elsewhere, there’s a broad range of opinion about that — and a fairly strong opinion at that.”
For now, he said that the committee is done, unless the village council wants them to take another look.
Kaatz did not return three calls and an email for comment, Tatman was unavailable for comment last week and Dawson could not be reached.
Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith. Contact Bryce Airgood at (810) 989-6202 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @bairgood123.