Mobile food vending should never have been the subject of intense political debate. Freedom of choice and freedom to make a living ought to be a given. Only in the past three years has there been any perceptible understanding of this in the Inland Empire when it comes to food trucks.googleoff: all
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It was only in December 2013 that the Riverside County Board of Supervisors ended its outright prohibition on these vendors. Riverside County has the dubious distinction of being the last county in California to finally allow food trucks to operate as a day-to-day business.googleoff: allgoogleon: all
San Bernardino County isn’t much better. While the county began to allow food trucks to operate on a limited basis in 2012, the rules governing their operation have been excessive. In October 2014, the county eased up further and began allowing events with less than 100 attendees to bring food trucks without additional permits.googleoff: allgoogleon: all
Beyond county overreach, city governments haven’t been much more receptive, with many having unnecessary rules of their own. The city of Palm Springs, for example, has made a point of postponing the creation of a simple regulatory framework for food trucks, deciding in March 2014 and December 2014 to continue banning them.googleoff: allgoogleon: all
There has never been any coherent reason for banning food trucks, and there is little justification for excessive regulation at any level of government.googleoff: allgoogleon: all
In the absence of any threat to public health or safety, food truck bans and regulations have generally come down to plain suppression of competition by brick-and-mortar businesses.googleoff: allgoogleon: all
Government involvement in this has not only stunted the development of the region’s own food truck boom. It has thereby deprived unknown numbers of people the opportunity to become business owners.googleoff: allgoogleon: all
Reporting from the Press-Enterprise laid out the legacy of the region’s unfriendliness to food trucks. Whereas Orange County has 592 food trucks, Riverside County has eight and San Bernardino County has seven. Los Angeles County, for its part, has over 10,000 food trucks and carts.googleoff: allgoogleon: all
Consumers and entrepreneurs have been denied opportunities purely on the grounds of pacifying business owners with more capital and organization than aspiring food truck operators.googleoff: allgoogleon: all
While it is possible that the region never would have become a hot-spot for food trucks, we’ll never really know what could have been because of needless government intervention.