- May 4, 2024
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Flagler Beach is revisiting an old debate: whether to allow mobile food vendors to operate within the city.
Right now, the city does not have an ordinance about food trucks and carts; it has some informal rules. Vendors have been inquiring about whether they can come sell, and one has even parked on State Road A1A before, Mayor Linda Provencher said.
The Flagler Beach City Commission has directed its staff to draft an ordinance about mobile vendors — one that will ban them — which will be used as a starting point for a discussion of how to handle such businesses in the city. The ordinance will likely be loosened once it is written.
Despite that, commissioners seemed intent to prevent widespread use of mobile vending within the city when it discussed the matter during a Thursday meeting.
“I’d like to see something on paper that either restricts or bans because I don’t want to take away from our businesses,” Commissioner Marshall Shupe said.
The concern does not come so much from the small carts already operating in the streets that sell things like hot dogs or ice cream, but more so from large food trucks that would take up space, take away from local businesses and are “annoying,” according to Commissioner Jane Mealy.
However, the commission discussed writing into its ordinance an exception to the rule, which would allow such trucks at city-sponsored events that allow them, so that the city could host events like Palm Coast’s Food Truck Tuesdays if it wished.
The last time this matter arose, city officials had a hard time defining types of vendors and setting restrictions on locations for the matter, so the issue was dropped. Currently, any mobile vendor attempting to sell on city property would be trespassing and told to stop.
However, if private owners decided to allow vendors to sell on their property, the city could not do anything about it — unless it has an ordinance either banning or restricting mobile vending.
The commission will hold a public hearing to read the ordinance. No hearing time has yet been scheduled.
