Diners can enjoy their gourmet favorites, and food truck restaurateurs have a greater deal of legal certainty to sell after the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to allow food truck sales in unincorporated areas. The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a revision to its food truck ordinance, removing the restriction that prevented trucks from roaming freely in the county unincorporated areas.
Food truck vendors got the green light from the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to roam freely and sell their wares in the county’s unincorporated areas.
But food truck vendors must still comply with regulations established in the county’s 24 cities, most of which ban free-roaming food trucks.
“We’re really the last county in the state to allow food trucks. I’m glad that it’s finally happened,” Supervisor Janice Rutherford said Tuesday.
Rutherford introduced the county’s original food truck ordinance in 2012, which allowed food trucks to be stationed at special events as long as they obtained temporary special use permits, which came at a cost vendors didn’t really want to pay and wasn’t really what they had in mind: the freedom to roam, park and sell their food where they desired.
Now, they can do so, but the county’s unincorporated areas are not the ideal locations for food truck vendors, who want to park their mobile restaurants in densely populated areas with a large volume of pedestrian traffic.
“I wish that they would do that in the incorporated areas,” said Tobi Miller, co-owner of San Bernardino’s Bratworks restaurant, which sells gourmet hot dogs, sans nitrates and additives. He also has a food truck to help promote the restaurant brand and expand its customer reach.
City officials have expressed concern over the potential negative impact food trucks can have on existing brick-and-mortar restaurants. The argument has centered mainly on the overhead brick-and-mortar restaurants pay as opposed to food trucks and the poaching of customers.
Miller said the overhead to operate a food truck is comparable to a brick-and-mortar restaurant, The average cost to buy a food truck is about $200,000, but some go as high as $1 million. Some vendors, like Miller, rent their food trucks, and Miller said he pays $2,500 a month to rent his food truck and $3,000 a month in rent at his 1,060-square-foot restaurant near Cal State San Bernardino, a difference of $500.
And business is booming for Miller. He opened Bratworks in September 2014, and in less than a year is already in the process of opening three other locations: in downtown Redlands, Sherman Oaks and Palm Desert. All three locations should be open by the end of the year, Miller said.
The Board of Supervisors’ unanimous 4-0 approval of the revised ordinance on Tuesday follows the July 2 approval by the county Planning Commission. Supervisor Robert Lovingood was absent from Tuesday’s meeting and did not vote on the item.