A number of Inventory Island restaurant house owners are pissed off by a latest proliferation of meals vans, prompting county officers to contemplate considerations which have turn out to be acquainted all through Florida.
Whereas prior I Love Inventory Island festivals have touted meals truck excursions, house owners of brick-and-mortar eating places are beginning to resent the expense of working a everlasting location, whereas having to compete with an estimated 12 to 14 meals vans on the small island.
“What am I even doing anymore?” mentioned Jeff Tomita, whose household has owned Chico’s Cantina for greater than twenty years.
Restaurant house owners pay mortgages or rents, utility payments, insurance coverage, full kitchen workers salaries, impression charges per seats and are certain by parking necessities that mandate a sure variety of spots primarily based on the scale of the restaurant.
“Meals vans solely have one, perhaps two, staff, no mortgage, no utility payments,” Tomita mentioned. “I may put two or three meals vans in my car parking zone, and be executed with it. It’s loopy.”
County commissioners on March 25 had a quick dialogue about current and potential rules for meals vans in unincorporated Monroe County, which incorporates Inventory Island.
Florida state regulation prohibits cities and counties from banning meals vans outright of their municipalities, as some cities had tried to do over the previous 10 or 12 years with a purpose to shield brick-and-mortar eating places. However native officers can regulate the place meals vans can and can’t function primarily based on zoning.
Monroe County at the moment requires meals vans to be positioned on non-public property, and permits them to function in any zoning areas the place eating places are allowed with no requirement that meals vans be positioned a sure distance from any everlasting eating places. Licensing, permits and charges for meals vans are preempted by the state, which means native governments can not impose further charges or allow necessities on meals vans as soon as they receive a license from the Florida Division of Enterprise and Skilled Regulation.
That preemption got here within the Occupational Freedom and Alternative Act, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in 2020, lowering rules on greater than a dozen industries.
“The new regulation additionally clears up a longstanding disagreement over whether or not state or native officers management the licensing course of for meals vans by inserting well being and issues of safety underneath state authority,” states a 2020 article on the libertarian web site cause.com, which supported the deregulation invoice. “Native officers will nonetheless have the ability to maintain meals vans out of sure areas with zoning legal guidelines, however they gained’t have the ability to pile further licensing necessities on high of current state guidelines to dam distributors from working.”
Monroe County commissioners this week didn’t vote on any modifications to the Florida Keys’ meals truck rules, however additional discussions are seemingly. Officers in different Florida cities and counties have handed proximity rules that prohibit meals vans from working inside a sure distance of a everlasting restaurant.
Meals truck proponents have claimed that cities and counties that restricted cell meals distributors have been taking part in favorites and defending brick-and-mortar eating places.
“It’s not the federal government’s job to choose winners and losers within the market. That proper belongs to customers,” mentioned Justin Pearson, an lawyer with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit regulation agency that helped meals truck house owners sue Florida cities and counties over restrictions.
However pissed off restaurant house owners are looking for additional discussions and eventual choices by county officers.