While New York and Los Angeles are in the middle of a food truck throwdown, Vancouver and Disneyland are welcoming street food options with open arms.
In New York City, council members Jessica Lappin and Karen Koslowitz are attempting to overthrow the parking meter hierarchy of "I got here first" by enforcing meter feeding and idling regulation and de-licensing any mobile food vendor who receives three parking tickets in a year.
Read more here.
In Los Angeles, councilman Tom LaBonge is proposing the same idea, different angle. He would prohibit food trucks from parking in commercially zoned spaces and call for the creation of food truck parking spots. Read more here.
Now here's where it gets confusing.
Disneyland, once notorious for discriminating against and turning away hippies in the 1960's from its magical gates, has included food trucks in the upcoming Glow Fest, as reported by the OC Register here. If you have ever visited Disneyland, you know how difficult it is to even bring a water bottle inside, and now they are allowing outside food vendors into the theme park.
And finally, Canada is just trying to get a taste of the action and has actually put out a request to aspiring chefs to hit their streets to apply for one of seventeen street food spots in the city. See here. They call it a street food pilot program.
To recap, the cities of LA and NY are trying to prevent mobile food vendors from serving in the streets, and Disneyland and Vancouver, BC are calling for gourmet, low cost food options to hit their streets.
As the saga plays out, it will be interesting to see how new cities embrace the gourmet food truck trend while others try to manage it. What's most interesting however, is to see the cultural collision of legislation in cities that thrive on a mobile food culture, like LA and NY.
I can't imagine an LA without roaming food trucks or a New York where getting a quick bite on a street corner isn't an option. And while LA and NY are justified in following the written law, the lawmakers of both cities must remember the little things that define their cities. If not, we all may have to consider moving to Canada or just buying season passes to Disneyland.