About 20 feet in from the crosswalk at the midtown corner of Broadway and Elmendorf Street in Kingston, the Super Taco food truck is doing a brisk business.
Across Broadway, Radio Kingston’s small campus has finished with its facelift. Its radio-program hosts can be seen through the tinted windows broadcasting their voices into the air.
More bodega than grocer, Broadway Grocers holds the corner spot across Elmendorf, offering deli food, snacks, beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets and the like. Broadway Lights Diner is on the opposite corner.
Super Taco owner and head cook Patricio knows both the diner and the neighborhood well. “I worked at the diner for 20 years, always cooking,” said Patricio. “I worked like 70 hours, 80 hours sometimes.”
Now Patricio now cooks Mexican sidewalk cuisine. Tortas. Tacos. Chimichangas. Tamales. Tlayudas.
The tlayudas give away the Oaxacan provenance of the cook.
After 20 years inside looking out the large plate-glass windows of the diner, in business for himself for a year, Patricio is able to look over and see the place at which he spent two decades of his working life. It’s both a comforting proof of his progress and a constant reminder of a life to which he could return if his business fails.
The latter currently doesn’t seem likely. This past Friday evening, Patricio handles constant traffic from the Latino community. Cars keep pulling up to the adjacent parking lot, looking to pick up something to go. Many people who place orders are just walking by. Men who look like they’ve been working all day, couples out on the town, younger men trailing clouds of pot smoke, garrulous on their cellphone video chats. A woman with dark hair works the truck with Patricio and takes the orders.
Patricio switches back and forth between Spanish and English, bantering with his customers.
“We get up at six o’clock in the morning and finish at about twelve at night,” he said. “We’re doing five days right now, but the other two days, we still have to do some work.”
While the food truck is mobile and he could take his business to any community, this is the spot he prefers.
“We’re doing good here, so we’re fine here,” said Patricio. “We go someplace else, sometimes we have to pay for it, and that’s not worth it.”
He’s heard that his food truck, along with the El Quetzal on Downs Street and Eweez Kitchen on O’Neil, has been singled out for attention at a City of Kingston Laws and Rules Committee. Beyond that gossip of municipal scrutiny, he doesn’t know much.
First-term Ward 4 alder Jeanne Edwards had opened the topic of food trucks two days earlier at the Laws and Rules Committee in the city hall. “I am introducing to the committee for us to do a full review on the food trucks for public safety and regulations,” said Edwards at the meeting. “Just to open up a few points that I think we should start looking at.”
In a letter introduced into the agenda, Edwards gave her reasoning. She contended the three food trucks were interrupting the flow of traffic and taking up legal parking spaces, as well as limiting parking for businesses, residents and visitors to the area. Unnamed restaurant owners had expressed their feelings to her.
“The restaurateurs pay high rents, taxes, insurances, and have the need to employ many members of staff,” she said, “while these trucks function under different guidelines and are taking up coveted parking spots and creating unnecessary competition and intrusion in the restaurant community.”
The Super Taco and Eweez Kitchen food trucks appear to be taking up one parking space each. El Quetzal takes two. The new form-based zoning code adopted by the city last fall does away with parking requirements for new businesses.
Are the trucks interfering with pedestrian crossings? All the trucks are set away from the crosswalks by at least one car-length.
Reached by phone, alder Edwards explained her concern about location.
“To get emergency vehicles down some of these streets is very hard,” said Edwards, “because they’re narrow and then they have a big truck there and the trucks haven’t been moving. When the food truck closes their doors in the evening, they turn into trailers and trailers are not supposed to be on city streets overnight.”
The alder’s letter alleged that the food trucks create “unnecessary competition” and “intrusion.” Parking spaces had been “commandeered.”
In cities and towns where food trucks have a large presence, complaints from other businesses against what they see as unfair competition have been the primary motivation behind cracking down on the business the trucks are doing.
Currently, Kingston food trucks are permitted under the peddler-and-solicitor law, and a license is provided by the police department. Hours of operation and the location for the trucks have not yet been addressed.
Health inspections in Kingston are run by the county DOH. Fire and grease-trap inspections are performed by the city.
Patricio does acknowledge the lower overhead to running a food truck than a brick-and-mortar business. His business is not without its costs, though, he says.
“We still have to pay all the insurance like normal restaurants,” he said. “And we have insurance for the food. We have all the permits to sell the food, and the permits from the fire department, health department. We have all that.”
Edwards has been surprised by the intensity of the coverage the subject has engendered.
“We’re definitely not after anyone to go out of business,” promised Edwards. “I eat at all them food trucks, and I eat at the one on Washington Avenue across from Trailways. You know, I think food trucks are fabulous. I’d like to see actually more of them, and I’d like to see food-truck festivals and stuff like that.”
Edwards highly recommends the Philly cheese steak at Eweez Kitchen.
In the Village of New Paltz, mayor Tim Rogers empathized with the need for regulations.
“I think that’s a balancing act,” said Rogers. “I’ve been mayor for nine years, and food trucks are one of those topics that pops up every now and again. It’s a little bit nuanced. We do have to have sets of rules that … protect the existing restaurants, as well as the need for parking, as well as public safety.”
With all the college kids in New Paltz, a demographic not known for preparing every meal at home, the idea of a vibrant food-truck community, which generally sells meals for cheaper than restaurants, may seem obvious. Rogers said that perception was exaggerated.
“When people go to larger communities like Austin, Texas, or Los Angeles, they see some sort of food-truck park. What I think many people underemphasize is just how relatively small we are,” said Rogers. “Sure, there are times of year when it’s busier, but we often don’t have the volume to support something that might seem like a home run of an idea in a larger metro area.”
Kingston is not exactly overrun with food trucks.
“There aren’t that many, to be honest with you,” said Edwards. “The one by Trailways, the three in Ward 4. And every now and then there’s a hot-dog one that pops up around. I don’t even know who that is.”
Another truck has been sighted near the Valero on Ulster Avenue.
Kingston has not yet confirmed the number of food trucks permitted to operate in the city.
“There’s no underlying agenda. And people will know when they deal with me,” said Edwards, “I’m very upfront. I support all the businesses in Kingston. I’ve eaten at every place on Broadway. I love my community, but it’s not just about Ward 4, it’s about all food trucks in Kingston.”
Edwards has not yet asked the opinions of the food-truck entrepreneurs about how additional regulations would affect their businesses. Edwards intends to get all her ducks in a row ahead of the next Laws and Rules meeting prior to committee action on the issue.
In the meantime, Patricio is grateful for the spring weather. Even with the fiery temperatures created by cooking inside the truck, he said the winter was cold indeed.
What about the heat inside the truck in the summer? He laughed.
“Oh, it’s terrible.”
Right now, the temperature is just right
Join the family! 
