Village trustees voted unanimously Monday night to place a six-month moratorium on food trucks while they craft a law regulating the vehicles.
During a brief public hearing at which only one resident spoke, Mayor William Murphy said the board’s main concern are the dozen restaurants that line Main and Partition Streets.
He said that during the lunch hour, the trucks, which in the case of the one in the Speedy Mart parking lot sells Mexican food, might compete with some of what restaurants serve. He said if more vendors were permitted without regulations, then “Main Street might turn into a vendor lot.”
He added that brick and mortar restaurants pay property taxes while mobile food trucks don’t.
The moratorium, Murphy pointed out, would only be temporary while the board works through various issues concerning the vendors.
Currently there is no law on the books regulating vendors, Murphy said. Both the vendor at Speedy Mart and the one on Route 212 next to Snyder’s Appliances are being permitted to do business, because they came in before a moratorium was even considered, however, next year, when a law is in place, they will have to abide by whatever regulations are established.
The mayor said the village has already received calls from restaurants and businesses concerned about the trucks.
Village resident Michele Aizenstat said the Village Board should look to Hudson to see how vendors and restaurants can co-exist peacefully. “It’s working there.”
“We just don’t want them all over the street,” Murphy said.
Trustee Patrick Landewe added that there is concern about possible traffic congestion in the village from people stopping their vehicles near the vendors.
For the next several months, the trustees will look at how other towns deal with food vending trucks and craft a law that will allow them to regulate them.
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