Montgomery City Council continues discussions on food truck ordinances

Montgomery City Council continued discussing potential changes to its proposed food truck ordinances at its Oct. 12 meeting. Conversations about the ordinances began during a July council meeting and were discussed again at a Sept. 30 workshop session, Community Impact Newspaper previously reported.

Dave McCorquodale, assistant city administrator and director of planning and development, presented the council with updated proposed changes to the ordinances based on the September workshop discussion. The changes included adding a definition for amobile food unit and requiring mobile food trucks to not remain on the same site or property for more than two consecutive days.

“This entire things comes down to the question, ‘Does a mobile food vendor need to be mobile?’” McCorquodale said. “If you get a mobile food vendor permit in the city, you need to remain mobile.”

Multiple council members suggested mobile food vendors be able to operate for six days consecutively in the same place instead of two. McCorquodale said he could make that change in the proposed ordinance.

The proposed changes also include different operating hours for mobile food vendors. Those with a constant power source would be able to operate between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., although a start time of 6:30 a.m. was suggested at the September workshop.

Even with the added definitions and special requirements, Mayor Sara Countryman said she was disappointed with the proposed ordinances.

“There’s so much ambiguity here, and I’m disappointed because I’ve gone through multiple cities’ [ordinances] and places like Conroe; they’re air tight; there are no grey areas,” Countryman said.

The council discussed multiple other changes, such as how far a food truck needs to be from a restroom, special permits for festivals and different regulations for food truck parks. No changes were voted on at the meeting.