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From EfficientGov-August 18, 2017 <br />Kentucky. <br />Smart cities have recognized that food trucks play an important role in developing a lively and <br />vibrant local business climate," according to an IJ description of the case. `But instead of <br />encouraging local entrepreneurs, Louisville officials use the city's 150-foot ban to punish food trucks <br />for choosing a different business model than their brick-and-mortar competitors." <br />Chicago's No-Food 'Track Bubble to Remain <br />An extensive IJ sni(k about Chicago's 200-foot rule, points out that the concentration of more than <br />600 restaurants, coffee shops, and convenience stores in the city's Loop district, each with their own <br />200-foot buffer, creates a blanket of overlapping bubbles making it illegal to operate a food truck <br />virtually anywhere downtown. <br />The study stated food truck owners face 51,000 52,000 fines for parking too close to a brick-and- <br />mortar restaurant in Chicago, dwarfing the fines of other parking safety restrictions,like the 5100 <br />fine for parking at a bus stop. <br />The city's scheme therefore perversely incentivizes food trucks to break laws that protect the <br />public's health-and-safety concerns instead of a law that protects only a competitor's bottom line," <br />according to the study. <br />In Dec. 2016, a Cook County judge upheld the city's 200-foot restriction on food trucks, rejecting <br />arguments that the law gives traditional restaurants competitive advantages, according to an article in <br />the G;il(i ,7Eo) `mi.THM `... <br />The Institute for Justice is appealing the case. <br />Branson Dialed. Luck Zoning to Enable Food 'Tracks <br />Branson, Mo., also has a distance ordinance restriction for food trucks: they can't operate less than <br />100 feet from a restaurant without the owner's permission. That's OK with Peter Berzofsky, the co- <br />owner of Spork Express;he's just happy to sell his food within city limits. <br />Until this spring,Branson zoning code stated that businesses with a temporary structure couldn't <br />operate in the city. This included food trucks,ice-cream trucks and lunch carts, according to <br />Berzofsky, who owns Spork Express with his sister Jane Goss. <br />That stood for years and no one had ever challenged the law," Berzofsky said. <br />Once a large resort became interested in bringing food trucks onsite, the city began to draft an <br />ordinance to change the rule. The process took a year, said Berzofsky, and when it was published for <br />approval by the Branson Board of Aldermen,it was too restrictive, requiring water, sewer and <br />electrical hook ups, and tornado tie downs for each truck, as well as a 1,000-gallon grease <br />interceptor. <br />Berzofsky, his sister and a friend who owns an ice-cream truck attended multiple meetings in an <br />attempt to have the city back off the restrictions. Berzofsky said he convinced the city engineer and <br />board members to visit Spork Express at a neighboring city's farmers market.