Mansfield City Council pulls proposed food truck regulations from agenda

MANSFIELD — It probably takes David Kirst longer to make wings at his Chicken Box than it did for Mansfield City Council to pull proposed food truck regulations Tuesday night.

The 18-page proposal — written by Deputy Law Director Chris Brown after local lawmakers discussed the concept four months ago — never made it to the official start of City Council.

That’s because 6th Ward Councilwoman Kimberly Moton, chair of council’s economic development committee, successfully got her colleagues to unanimously yank it during caucus.

Questions about the proposal, which included new application fees and annual licensing fees, sprang up moments after council President David Falquette asked Moton to introduce the legislation.

“After (caucus) discussion, I have a motion for this,” Moton said.

Falquette asked for that discussion, prompting a request from 4th Ward Councilman Alomar Davenport.

Falquette asked for that discussion, prompting a request from 4th Ward Councilman Alomar Davenport.

“This was kind of spearheaded by (Brown), who is not here today. He did give us an overview. Are there any changes or anything that we should know that is in there now that was not in there originally?” Davenport asked.

At-large Councilwoman Stephanie Zader said she and Brown had worked on the proposal for about six months.

“But I think that we’ll have plenty of time for questions, if we let (Moton) get to her motion,” she said.

During a council meeting in March, Brown had pointed out to council the city had no regulations on the books for food trucks. 

“As we know over the past five years or so, food trucks have gotten more and more popular across the country, but especially here in town. If you look at the City of Mansfield’s current codified ordinance as it relates to food trucks, there is literally nothing when it comes to regulating food trucks,” he said in March.

Brown provided an overview at the time, but the actual legislation wasn’t made available to the public until clerk Amy Yockey emailed council’s agenda on Friday.

And Moton was ready to move on a proposal on a food truck bill that had gotten bad reviews on social media since it was previewed Monday in Richland Source.

“I put a motion on the floor to remove Bill 23-106 from consideration tonight until further review,” she said.

Falquette asked Moton if she was seeking to pull the bill or tabled until a specified later date. She replied her desire was to see it pulled.

“That’s the way the motion was set. So we’re going to pull it, period. And maybe someday it will be submitted later,” the council president said.

Moton said, “There will be further discussion about whether it will be resubmitted.”

Her motion quickly passed, 8-0.

Zader pointed out there were “lots of people” in the audience with local food trucks, which she said was one of the reasons the bill had been pulled.

“There are lots of questions that we have and we know that you do, too,” she said.

Kirst was one of the food truck owners present and he had remarks prepared for the public participation a few minutes later when lawmakers began their official council session.

Kirst, a Mansfield-based film producer, launched his Chicken Box food truck in May. He implored council to strongly reconsider assessing fees on what he called “the smallest of business owners.”

“The fee of $180 for a license, plus an additional $250 fee for a right-of-way license, plus a $50 application fee, is a grand total of $480.

“This would be a financial hardship because these fees would then be added to the health department fees and the vendor’s license fees that already exist for us to operate.

“To get the fire department involved, this will most likely result in making us food truck owners install a fire depression system that would cost in the range of $6,000 to $10,000. That would decimate pretty much everyone in the food industry when it comes to mobile businesses,” Kirst said.

“We provide jobs, we pay taxes. We are the centerpiece of every festival, every fair, every concert, and every Final Friday right here in Mansfield. And in fact, I’ve seen a lot of you council people here (visit) our businesses at those places.

“We’re as American and pure as apple pie and lemonade stands,” Kirst said.

He thanked council for pulling the proposal.

“We are the smallest of small business, but there’s many of us and we’re out there every day. But we’re not just out there here in Mansfield. We have to go elsewhere, too, because we compete with all the huge giants, McDonald’s, Burger King, you name it.

“We don’t want to compete with them. We just want to walk amongst those giants without being squashed and to get support from our city that we serve,” Kirst said.