The Fight Against Food Trucks
Politicians call food trucks “unfair competition” for restaurants—smother them with regulations.
For some entrepreneurs, they’re a great first rung for entering the food industry. Here’s more from John Stossel.
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Fight Against Food Trucks
Food trucks are a vital part of many vibrant neighborhoods. For some entrepreneurs, they’re a great first rung for entering the food industry.
Laura Pekarik is one of these entrepreneurs. She sells cupcakes from a food truck in Chicago. Laura says the food truck industry “gives individuals like me an entrance into a market opportunity for the small business owner that otherwise wouldn’t have been there. I was able to rent a kitchen space instead of renting a whole brick and mortar and managing a team of people. Everything kind of was under my control to kind of get my feet wet in the business.”
But since starting her business, the increased regulations have made it too hard for her to take her truck in to the city. Often she is not even allowed to park. When she does find parking, she can only stay 2 hours. “Every moment that we’re driving around and not parked in the location with our window open meant that we couldn’t sell,” she says.
Baltimore Pizza Truck operator Joey Vanoni tells John Stossel about his similar experiences. He is not allowed to park his truck within 300 feet of any brick and mortar restaurant that sells pizza. Joey says that means “there’s almost nowhere left for me to operate.”
Why do politicians limit where food trucks may park? Chicago Alderman Tom Tunney says he wants to protect existing restaurants. “It is such a small margin business and it employs so many people. That’s what we need to protect.” John Stossel says, he’s a bottlenecker.
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When the Chips Are Down
The Northside school district in San Antonio, Texas, has won November’s Nanny of the Month Award for its decision requiring students to wear electronic tracking devices. The students actually wear radio frequency identification chips (RFID chips, for short) that can be monitored from dozens of electronic readers installed in schools’ ceiling panels to keep tabs on the kiddos during the schoolday.
With school-based tracking going back to at least 2004, the Lone Star State has been something of an RFID trailblazer. In fact, Northside is considering expanding the program to cover all of the district’s 97,000 students.
Reason.TV named two runners-up for the Nanny of the Month Award:
* The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where administrators may ban booze in dorms — even for students of legal drinking age.
* The city of Chicago, where officials are using GPS devices to track food trucks to make sure they don’t wander within 200 feet of any fixed businesses that sell food, including convenience stores. Violators could face fines of $2,000.
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