{"id":124158,"date":"2026-01-19T21:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/124158\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T21:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:29:07","slug":"cape-coral-truck-driver-says-city-ordinance-is-pushing-his-business-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/124158\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape Coral truck driver says city ordinance is pushing his business out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 A Cape Coral transportation company owner says a <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/library.municode.com\/fl\/cape_coral\/ordinances\/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=1378492\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">city ordinance<\/a> that doesn&#8217;t allow him to keep his commercial truck in his driveway is making it difficult for his business to operate and retain employees.<\/p>\n<p>Fox 4&#8217;s Bella Line spoke with the man about a notice he recently received:<\/p>\n<p>Cape Coral trucking company owner says city ordinance is pushing his business out<\/p>\n<p>Ruben Varela owns Strong Arm Transportation and Labor, a trucking company in Cape Coral. He recently received a notice for parking his work truck in his own driveway.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It just feels like I don&#8217;t own my home. Feels like, HOA is in control of my home,&#8221; Varela said. &#8220;This is my driveway, whether it&#8217;s an eyesore for my neighbor or not, I should be able to drive what I own on my driveway.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The ordinance is creating logistical challenges for Varela&#8217;s business. He says his drivers who live in Cape Coral must now drive 45 minutes outside the city to park their trucks. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These guys only have a certain amount of hours that they could drive, so when I have to steer them away from where they&#8217;re actually supposed to be, that also feeds into productivity and efficiency, so that&#8217;s less time that they could actually work,&#8221; Varela said.<\/p>\n<p>He says local storage options are expensive, costing around $400 per week.<\/p>\n<p>He believes the city should sell or rent lots to local businesses for commercial truck parking.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s going to get harder for me to be able to retain employees if this continues to be the case,&#8221; Varela said.<\/p>\n<p>Council Member Jennifer Nelson Lastra showed interest at the last City Council meeting in Varela&#8217;s situation and said she wants to meet with Varela to discuss potential solutions to the issue.<\/p>\n<p>This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 A Cape Coral transportation company owner says a city ordinance that doesn&#8217;t allow him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3862,17573,209,263,211,210,55505,1292,264,8810,26950,29041,61585],"class_list":{"0":"post-124158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-bella-line","9":"tag-bing-news","10":"tag-cape-coral","11":"tag-cape-coral-florida","12":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","13":"tag-cape-coral-news","14":"tag-commercial-vehicle","15":"tag-facebook","16":"tag-fox-4","17":"tag-google-news","18":"tag-instagram","19":"tag-ordinance","20":"tag-strong-arm-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}