FORT PIERCE \u2013 City officials are looking at new regulations for food trucks to help equalize standards for mobile eateries and brick-and-mortar businesses and to help assure health and fire compliance.<\/p>\n
Fort Pierce officials say there are an estimated 60 mobile food vendors \u2013 including people who sell plated dinners out of their cars \u2013 operating at various locations in the city.<\/p>\n
But currently there exist minimal standards for licensing, sites and codes.<\/p>\n
The result, officials say, are varying levels of temporary amenities, food quality and building standards.<\/p>\n
City commissioners did praise some of the mobile eateries for serving tasty home recipes.<\/p>\n
According to Shaun Coss, Fort Pierce director of community response, the plan is to update the city\u2019s food truck ordinance, including rules that could require any operator using the same site more than three days to submit a site plan in advance.<\/p>\n
Coss said there is no current prohibition on trucks using on-site utilities and there have been complaints that pop-up food sites have an unfair competitive advantage over restaurants that invest in costly land and buildings that are subject to tougher rules.<\/p>\n
Officials said vacant lots in the city are prime locations for here-today, gone-tomorrow food sales. And many times, operators don\u2019t even get the property owner\u2019s permission to use the land.<\/p>\n
District 2 Commissioner Michael Broderick said one of those operations was set up on a vacant lot he owns. The operator advised Broderick that he had a long-term lease with the landowner.<\/p>\n
The mobile business was torn down and relocated on a vacant parcel across the street when Broderick assured him that he had no such lease.<\/p>\n
Creation of a food truck court is another concept the city will explore.<\/p>\n
Kevin Freeman, city planning director, said some communities have designated land where concrete pads are poured to accommodate set ups, including utilities, for a number of food trucks. That makes it easier for those locations to enforce uniform codes.<\/p>\n
Internally, multiple city departments \u2013 including building, planning, engineering, utilities and code enforcement \u2013 will be reviewing and proposing requirements.<\/p>\n
But before the city commission considers anything, officials said they want to host citizen comment sessions and an online survey to gather public sentiment.<\/p>\n
In other business, community activist Rick Reed said last week\u2019s guilty verdict to official misconduct for former city manager Nicholas Mimms uncovered disturbing actions by other city employees who were called to testify by prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Jurors declared Mimms not guilty of bid-rigging.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat transpired did not happen in a vacuum,\u201d Reed said. \u201cNick didn\u2019t do it by himself \u2026 I believe others should be indicted and I think the state attorney\u2019s office sees that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioners also lauded former Fort Pierce Deputy Chief Robert Ridle who recently retired after a 30-year career with the department. He rose up the department\u2019s ranks and served as interim chief prior to the hiring of current chief David Smith.<\/p>\n
Ridle will continue his community involvement at the local Boys and Girls Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 City officials are looking at new regulations for food trucks to help equalize standards for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":["post-426151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-st_lucie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426151","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=426151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}