Outlaws Make Better Lunches By ZACH BROOKS THE past few years have been a golden age for street food in New York City. You could get just about anything from a food truck in Midtown Manhattan — from waffles and schnitzel to halal chicken and lamb over rice — despite the fact that street vending is for all intents and purposes illegal there. Last month police officers in Midtown cracked down and asked many trucks to leave their spots. Everyone is blaming a court case in May, in which a New York State Supreme Court justice reinforced a regulation saying that no “vendor, hawker or huckster” can sell merchandise from a vehicle parked in a metered space. But although enforcement was scattershot, that regulation has been used against Midtown food trucks for decades. The crackdown’s real catalyst was the recent explosion of high-end food trucks in Midtown. For the first time, blocks were host to three or four trucks at once. And instead of the old-school food vendors, who are often immigrants used to navigating the gray areas of the business, most of these trucks were operated by a new breed of entrepreneur looking to capitalize on what (falsely) appeared to be the hippest, most profitable trend in the food business. Food truck regulations have always been purposefully vague and selectively enforced in New York City. The government does not want to strip the city of one of its treasures (can you imagine a New York without hot dogs?) nor can it fully legalize street vending, because opening up hundreds of rent-free spots would damage the real estate economy. So street vendors and the city long ago struck a tacit deal: the city allows vendors to sell food but reserves the right to kick them out of practically any spot at any time, and vendors keep their heads down, careful not to upset their relationships with the nearby brick-and-mortar businesses, with the police, and with each other. When disputes come up, vendors compromise or move. Many of the new food trucks’ operators have ignored these unwritten rules. Some early entrants onto the scene, like the Treats Truck and Wafels & Dinges, spent months cultivating spots and relationships, which allowed them to settle into areas that were previously unoccupied. But many new trucks have taken the quicker route, parking where others have found success rather than trying to create a space of their own. As a result brick-and-mortar business owners who tolerated one truck out front one or two days a week started seeing more and more each day, and eventually got fed up and called the police. Even as an ardent food truck supporter, I find it hard not to sympathize. They pay high rents, only to see food trucks parking free on their doorsteps. There is no denying that the increase in food trucks is unsustainable. Some are tempted to look to other cities, like Los Angeles, arguably the birthplace of the high-end food truck trend, for solutions. But it is facing an almost identical situation. Mexican vendors called loncheros spent years working out a compromise with the city that allowed them to sell food without interfering with brick-and-mortar businesses, but a wave of fancy food trucks parking in high traffic areas led to a similar crackdown. Portland, Ore., which has become a mecca for street-food lovers, rents out spots in privately owned parking lots to vendors. But those food trucks operate more like restaurants than street vendors. New York is trying something similar in a Queens parking lot and under the High Line, an elevated park in Manhattan, but it won’t do much good for trucks or lunchers in the city’s more crowded areas. Some vendors and food-truck fans are circulating a petition asking the city to change the parking rule. But even if it does, other regulations still make most Midtown parking spots off limits. As tempting as it is to try to change New York City’s laws and establish clear rules for vendors, it’s not likely to happen. And it shouldn’t. Vendors and fans are actually better served by the status quo. New York’s street food scene is unique and vibrant precisely because it exists in that legal gray area. Traditionally only immigrant and small mom-and-pop businesses were willing to risk the city’s intermittent crackdowns. The vague rules have long deterred any passionless big businesses looking for the next lucrative franchise. Turn street spots into legal real estate controlled by the city, and it will be only a matter of time before street food becomes just as bland and generic as that of any fast-food restaurant in Midtown. So instead of fighting to change the laws, vendors who are passionately committed to their food trucks should do what street hawkers in New York have always done after big crackdowns like this one: wait for it to end and then return to Midtown bit by bit, in a way that is respectful to the rent-paying businesses. Or ditch the truck and open a brick-and-mortar business. It’s the way New York street food has endured for the past 150 years, and the only way it will be here for 150 more. Zach Brooks runs the Web site Midtown Lunch.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 03:51:18 +0000
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