Two food trucks suing Baltimore over restriction

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Two Baltimore-area food truck vendors are suing the city over a law that prohibits food trucks and other mobile vendors from setting up within 300 feet of a brick-and-mortar shop that sells a comparable product.

Joey Vanoni of Pizza di Joey and Nikki McGowan of Madame BBQ are suing the city on grounds that the law hinders their business. The suit, filed in partnership with the Institute of Justice, was filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on Wednesday. The Institute of Justice’s local counsel is Glenn E. Bushel from Tydings & Rosenberg, LLP.

The 300-foot law, which applies to food and other mobile vendors, was passed in 2014. Under the law, a pizza truck, for example, can’t park within 300 feet of a restaurant that sells pizza. Violators are subject to a $500 fine and can have their vendor’s license revoked.

The suit is part of the Institute for Justice’s National Street Vending Initiative, which has successfully pursued similar cases in El Paso, Atlanta and San Antonio, the organization says. IJ is currently pursuing a similar case in Chicago.

The plaintiffs are asking for a declaratory judgement that the law violates their constitutional right to equal protection and due process, for the city to stop enforcing the law, a $1 award in nominal damages and an award to cover the plaintiffs’ lawsuit expenses, the complaint said.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s office issued a statement late Wednesday, calling the lawsuit a “much ado about nothing.”

“The Mayor and City Council have the authority to regulate public rights of way and the City frequently places limitations on what is and is not permitted in various locations,” said Anthony McCarthy, the mayor’s director of public affairs. “We look forward to the legal system working through the facts of the case.”

Vanoni and McGowan got involved in the issue when it was just a grievance among the food truck community. They had hoped the city would come around and strike down a temporary regulation passed in 2011. When the law was strengthened to include all mobile vendors in 2014, the Institute for Justice wanted to take action.

“The 300-foot rule has nothing to do with public health or safety,” said Greg Reed, an attorney with the Institute for Justice. “Its sole purpose is to protect brick-and-mortar business from competition by arbitrarily preventing food trucks from operating based on what they sell.”

The plaintiffs are challenging the constitutionality of the law, arguing that “such economic protectionism violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights,” the complaint said.

Vanoni is a Baltimore resident and has owned a food truck since August 2014. He made pizzas as a high school student in New Jersey and joined the U.S. Navy after graduating. Vanoni returned from Afghanistan in 2013 and had trouble finding work, so he decided to pursue his lifelong dream of owning a pizzeria. He wanted to own a food truck so he could serve a range of Baltimore neighborhoods. Vanoni employs veterans to work on his truck, according to the complaint.

McGowan has always worked in the food industry, both brick-and-mortar shops and on wheels. In high school she worked at Clyde’s in Columbia and has side jobs at restaurants as she pursued a career in social work. McGowan opened the Madame BBQ food truck in Howard County in November of 2014 and periodically gets a temporary license to bring the food truck to Baltimore, but she said she’s worried about the 300-foot rule’s impact on her business in the city.

“This doesn’t even make sense to me,” said McGowan after a press conference on Wednesday.

When the 2014 regulations were passed, food trucks were already operating under temporary rules that sought to set up zones around the city where food trucks could park. When the new bill passed, Rawlings-Blake said the legislation was meant to allow the expansion of food trucks without creating tension with restaurants. Council members at the time also wanted to regulate food trucks in neighborhoods where parking was tight, The Baltimore Sun reported in 2014.

Institute for Justice lawyers said Wednesday that Baltimore has significantly fewer food trucks that it could have.

“Baltimore could have and should have a vibrant mobile industry,” said Reed.

It’s difficult to say whether barrier laws negatively impact the food truck industry because regulations can come in different forms in different cities. For example, Washington, D.C., does not have a barrier restriction, but it does have parking limitations for food trucks.

While food trucks have become the fastest-growing segment of the culinary industry in the country today, fights against food truck regulations date back to the 1970s.

In the 1970s and 1980s in Southern California, Mexican immigrants ran taco trucks that were subject to regulations including one that prohibited food trucks from being within 100 feet of a restaurant’s front door. With help from civil rights attorneys, those vendors successfully fought the laws. In 1984, the California legislators passed a law prohibiting limits on mobile vendors in the state unless there was a public safety reason.

Matthew Geller, executive director of the National Food Truck Association, has helped set up regional food truck associations across the country. A lawyer and CEO of the Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association, Geller got involved in food truck regulations when a friend was being “harassed” by his local health department for his food truck business.

Geller said the food truck industry has been subject to regulations across the country because it’s still a new kind of business.

“Everybody is seeing that food trucks enhance the culinary landscape,” he said.