Emanuel’s mobile merchant plan stalls
fspielman@ suntimes. com | @ fspielman
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to create a new and permanent designation for “mobile merchants” that allows non- food items to be sold from trucks parked legally on Chicago streets was stopped dead in its tracks Wednesday.
The City Council’s License Committee postponed a vote on the mayor’s ordinance after aldermen complained that they weren’t fully briefed and that the new category would create a double standard that treats the heavily regulated food truck industry unfairly and, potentially, illegally.
That could invite yet another lawsuit challenging a 2012 ordinance that prohibits food trucks from operating within 200 feet of restaurants and requires them to operate only at designated stands they must leave after two hours.
“The food truck industry is going to go berserk. We’re gonna tell people they can sell shirts, but not hot dogs from trucks. We need to spend more time on this,” said Ald. Tom Tunney ( 44th), owner of Ann Sather Restaurants.
“The 200- foot rule that applies to food trucks should apply here. I don’t know how we defend this.”
Tunney noted that the City Council “spent almost a year negotiating” before passing the food truck ordinance.
By comparison, the mobile vendors designation was a rush job, he said.
Tunney said he only read the ordinance “in the last 48 hours” and was not prepared to vote on it, even though temporary licenses granted by the city to seven vendors are due to expire on June 15. If need be, those temporary licenses can be extended, he said.
“We can get this done, but we need . . . to be briefed. . . . I don’t think we’ve been briefed properly. I ask that we hold this in committee. I don’t think we’re ready to vote on this,” Tunney said.
Lincoln Park Ald. Michele Smith ( 43rd) agreed to co- sponsor the new ordinance creating the new license. But that was before she realized there would be no aldermanic briefings “like we do on seemingly every other initiative of the administration.”
Smith suggested temporary licenses to give the City Council time to get it right.