TARPON SPRINGS — Commissioners voted 3-2 on first reading May 12 to limit food trucks to three nights and four days per week at any one site, rejecting a staff recommendation that would have allowed four nights and five days.
The vote followed the Planning and Zoning Board’s tighter recommendation. A second reading is scheduled for the commission’s May 26 meeting. The ordinance can be revisited in six months.
Commissioners Eisner and Weaver voted against the measure, arguing it overregulates a niche that currently has only one participant.
“When does it get to a point when we’re overregulating?” Commissioner Michael Eisner asked. “We have one food truck, Meli Greek Street Donuts. Unless we get more food trucks, I don’t see anybody who would be in their right mind wanting to do this.”
Interim Planning Director Allie Keen told commissioners in February they had directed staff to draft revisions to the standards for temporary use of mobile food-dispensing vehicles. “The primary objective of the proposed revisions is to expand the ability for temporary food trucks to remain on the service site overnight for a limited period,” she said.
The draft ordinance requires an existing business to apply for temporary-use approval to host a food truck and to allow patrons to use the business’s restroom. The truck must connect to the host’s electrical power unless it runs on its own battery. Documentation and enforcement would run through the Local Business Tax Receipt process.
Staff initially recommended four nights. But when the Planning and Zoning Board took up the item April 20, members proposed cutting it to three.
Board member Robert Rockelein said his experience with food trucks up north shaped the recommendation. Even on commercial property, he said, “you have commercial zoning that abuts residential zoning,” and “factors of impact — lighting, noise, smoke, smells — can affect people if it’s there for an extended period.”
“Normally, food trucks are Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” Rockelein said. “I came up with the three-day proposal as a kind of compromise, because we were hearing, why do you even need three days?”
Rockelein said he had fielded complaints about such impacts in jurisdictions where he previously worked. Weighing a residential homeowner next to a commercial zone, he said, “a single day is too little and a whole week too much.”
Mayor John Koulianos said he had no preference between three and four nights but would defer to Rockelein. He asked Keen whether the ordinance could be revised later.
“It can always be changed,” she said.
“This isn’t a permanent commitment,” Koulianos said. “We see how things work. If things change, it can be altered at a future date.”
Keen said the ordinance would allow a brick-and-mortar business to request a food truck on specific nights, and those nights could change from week to week.
Eisner said he originally proposed a food truck ordinance because the state required one, with a six-month review and an allowance of four nights and five days. He questioned how code enforcement could track which nights a truck operates.
“I think it’s an overregulation,” he said. “I don’t know how you can even supervise this. We’re getting too nitty-gritty into the weeds. I don’t want to go picking on Meli Donuts, and that’s the only one out there.”
Vice Mayor Panagiotis Koulias declined to amend his motion.
“We’re not going to go from one day to six and then come back to four nights and five days,” he said. “We have to listen to the Planning and Zoning Board. I don’t want trailers staying there for longer than three nights at any specific property.”
“It’s not a personal attack on any one individual or any one business,” Koulias added. “But we don’t create rules just for one business. I’d like to slow-play this.”