Question(s)

What is it about food trucks that distinguishes them as a "new and burgeoning industry" requiring a change to existing mobile vending laws? That's not a rhetorical question. I honestly don't know what's happened that brings forth the claim that regulations are "out of date."

It's fine with me if your answer is as simple as it's a change in popular fashion.  Because beside that I don't notice any fundamental advance in technology or business plan.  We're still just selling prepared food out of a truck, right?

Not saying there's anything wrong with it but when they start talking about changing laws because of "innovations" that aren't all that obvious, I start to wonder what else might be going on.

Update: Here's part two of this question.  Would any proposed change to mobile vendor regulations seem different to you if the beneficiaries would be corporate rather than Mom & Pop operators?

Chains like Taco Bell, Applebee's and Sizzler have each rolled out their own food trucks, the report says. Some of them hand out small samples for free, others sell their fare. Like their independent predecessors, many of the corporate food trucks tap Twitter and Facebook to generate buzz for the vehicles and decide where and when to hit the road.

Corporate food trucks are still rare. Only 6 percent of quick-service restaurants and 4 percent of fast-casual restaurants operate food trucks, according to a recent National Restaurant Association survey.

But big brands are increasingly finding food trucks to be effective marketing tools and "rolling test kitchens” for experimentation with new items, one Sizzler business development manager told AdWeek.

And here's part three of this question. What if such regulatory changes paved the way for Sizzler or Taco Bell to become the official city-sanctioned mobile vendor at every Second-Line parade? 

Upperdate: Is Stacy Head this dumb?

And Head believes the food trucks would be an asset in areas of the city where residents do not have a lot of places to eat, areas she calls "food deserts."

"What a wonderful place for two or three mobile food vendors to go, so that people can come out and walk around their neighborhood and enjoy an evening out.  More eyes on the street, more people walking around their neighborhood in the evening leads to a safer place," said Head.

First of all, a "food desert" is typically defined as an urban area deficient in access to fresh healthy groceries. There are "food deserts" with plenty of cheap unhealthy fast food around. That is, in fact, part of the problem.  In any case the trucks aren't asking to go to these places and serve healthy meals. They're asking to sell luxury food items at local hot spots. Stacy Head either knows this and is grasping for a distracting feel-good selling point, or is even dumber than we thought she was.