9.1. SR 11-20-2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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11/13/2017 Are Food Trucks Good or Bad for the Twin Cities? | streets.mn https://streets.mn/2012/07/09/are-food-trucks-good-or-bad-for-the-twin-cities/2/14 Street vendors in Los Angeles. A food truck parked by the Fulton Brewery, which until recently, was outside the “designated food truck zone.” The Long-Running Battle Between Street Vendors and Shop Owners This kind of debate is nothing new. As this wonderful hitstory of sidewalk debates points out, attempts to restrict street vending go waaaaay back into history. For example, in 1691, New York City (New Amsterdam?) prohibited selling on the streets until two hours after the official markets opened. After street vending blew up following the 19th century explosion of US cities, a whole new series of ordinances and regulations emerged to try and control the practice. The history of LA’s attempts to control push cart and sidewalk fruit vendors reads like a Tolstoy novel, replete with strikes and fees and police crackdowns and backroom deals and precise legal definitions of “fowl.” A more recent example is New York’s policing of book and magazine vendors, which was part of that city’s semi-fascist Giuliani-fueled crackdown on “quality of life” crimes. The basic debate is not just about taxes and the maintaining buildings. There’s also a struggle over how sidewalks and public spaces should be used. Is the sidewalk primarily a space for social interaction, for eating and drinking and selling and buying and stopping and talking and sitting and sleeping and protest? Or is the sidewalk a space to move through, a means of transportation? Throughout most of the 20th century, our society has opted for Door #2. Almost all cities have ordinances on the books that reserve the sidewalk for foot traffic, as means for getting from A to B. For example, Minneapolis Code 427.110 says: