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Business & Tech

Cities Differ in Attitude, Policies Toward Food Trucks

As the culture of street food grows, some St. Charles council members think the city should reconsider policy.

Donald Abbey has a very large family and somehow he's the one who always ends up getting stuck cooking.

“It’s always been a passion and a hobby of mine since I was a little kid,” he said.

Now Abbey’s hobby has become his career. He serves barbecue out of a trailer near Discount Smoke Shop on Veterans Memorial Parkway.

When Abbey first opened his business, he didn’t know his business was located in the city of St. Charles.

Abbey was operating with a St. Charles County license for six weeks until he was informed that the city had recently annexed that property.

He said he was not confident he would receive a permit because the city has turned down many street food vendors.

Abbey said while getting the St. Charles County permit was "a breeze," the permit for vending in St. Charles City was not as easy.

“It was a long process, tedious, but we got it done,” Abbey said.

While St. Charles County only requires that the business owner sign a commissary agreement and pass inspections, the permit must pass through both the Planning and Zoning Commission and the city council to be approved in St. Charles.

Abbey now pays an extra 1 percent tourist tax because he operates near the and the .

Abbey said if he were in the county, just up the street or across the road from where his trailer sits, he wouldn’t have to pay the tax.

“If I would have been over there, I wouldn’t have it. But I’m here,” Abbey said.

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Municipalities in St. Charles County have very different rules and regulations when it comes to food trucks.

St. Peters, for example, has never granted a permit for a food truck who wasn’t catering an event. Ann Burgdorf with the St. Peters business license office said street food vendors are sometimes discouraged by St. Peter’s strict regulations.

“We do get inquiries and once we make them aware, they are usually a catering truck or they don't apply with us,” Burgdorf said.

The city of O’Fallon does not allow food trucks at all.

Perhaps the easiest place to get a license is in St. Louis City.

Jeff Pupillo is co-owner of the mobile cupcake van, Sarah’s Cake Stop, and a member of the St. Louis Food Trucks Association. Pupillo said the city has gone from four food trucks to 19 within the past few months.

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This March, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay worked with food trucks and restaurants to help craft ordinances that were made to benefit to both parties.

“It’s been the Mayor’s office that realized the food trucks can create an energy downtown,” Pupillo said.

Pupillo said the food truck culture is growing in the Midwest, and members of the St. Louis Food Truck Association have seen a demand for street food in St. Charles.

“I’m hoping they ease some of the restrictions in St. Charles,” Pupillo said. “People have been asking us to come out there.”

Donald Abbey said he gets more than one hundred customers per week at Abbey Q.

Gaurang Bhavsar is set to open his Indian food trailer near this November. He said he would like to see more food culture during the summer month.

“Let’s say 10 or 15 permits in the summer time in some kind of location. That would be OK,” Bhavsar said.

St. Charles Approves Some Requests, Denies Others

, but after a second request for a permit, the council approved the trailer.

Three out of ten council members were absent when Bhavsar first brought the request to the council. Only two council members opposed the trailer, but that was enough to vote down Bhavsar’s permit.

Ward 7 councilman Dave Beckering said the city needs a new policy on street food that will stay consistent from vendor to vendor. Beckering said, right now, the city is forced to choose some vendors over others because the city does not have set standards for food trucks.

Though Beckering says he does not encourage street food vendors, he said the city needs to accept that street food is a growing trend.

“If we don’t we’re setting ourselves up for failure,” Beckering said.

Ward 8 council President Mike Klinghammer disagrees. He said the current conditional use permits insure each food truck is a good fit for the city because they allow the city council to re-evaluate businesses after one year.

“I believe that the vendors need to prove themselves, that they will be good vendors as well,” Klinghammer said.

Klinghammer said the city has had problems with trash near food trucks because sometimes there is not a good place to throw trash away.

The council has denied several requests from people seeking to set up hot dog stands on Main Street.

St. Charles Mayor Saith Faith said she thinks the city’s policy toward food trucks is fine as it is.

“I think they’re a case by case basis,” Faith said.

Faith said the goal is for food vendors to eventually move in to brick and mortar buildings. 

Donald Abbey said his goal is to open up a dine-in restaurant, but in this economy, he wanted to make sure his business would do well.

“I wanted to try and test the waters with this a little bit before I actually jumped in and did all the process of actually getting myself into a building,” Abbey said. “It takes a lot of money to start up a business nowadays, it really does.”

Abbey said he thinks designated areas for food trucks and more established regulations for mobile food vendors could benefit restauranteurs and vendors alike.

It is unclear whether the city council will seek a policy change for regulating mobile food vendors in the near future.

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