(KCPW News) Salt Lake City is proposing to amend a zoning ordinance to give mobile businesses more flexibility. Unlike food carts, food trucks aren’t allowed on public property and can’t set up shop for more than two hours. The proposed change would allow them to operate for up to 24 hours, give more options for private property use and public right of way, and considers mobile food courts, where multiple trucks could operate in one location. Salt Lake City Small Business Liaison Jessica Thesing says food trucks are becoming more prolific.
“We’ve been getting pressure to look at this model and allow them and that’s what we’re doing.” She says. “We’re rewriting our ordinance to really accommodate some of the wants of the public but we’re doing it very carefully because we want to make sure we’re not compromising some of the other uses that are already successful.”
Aabir Malik moved to Salt Lake City from Austin, Texas, where he says mobile food businesses are a big part of the food culture. He says Salt Lake City has the same potential.
“Just like you’d go to a restaurant, you go to these trailer-park eateries and you have a whole variety of food that you can eat from local chefs and up and coming chefs.” He says. “And only being here a year and a half, I can tell there are a lot of people who are like me that are really yearning for new places to eat, especially lat night.”
He says zoning flexibility would allow mobile businesses to be open later. The Salt Lake City Planning Division is holding an open house about the ordinance on the fourth floor of the Main City Library until 8 o’clock tonight.
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