Food Truck Fees Could Soar To $5,100

(Updated Thursday 3 p.m.) City officials have begun shopping around a proposal to set new rules for New Haven’s booming food-truck industry — including jacking up annual license fees from $200 to $5,100.

Economic development officials previewed the plan at a closed-door meeting this week at the Study with owners of brick-and-mortar restaurants, some of whom have criticized food trucks as unfair competitors who have lower fixed costs. Supporters of the operators call them a boon both to the economy and to New Haven’s quality of life.

The plan is just a draft at this point. Officials intend to run it by food truck operators and politicians before going public with the details. Participants at the Study meeting were sworn to secrecy; they weren’t allowed even to take pictures or physical copies of the proposed plan.

“There are many constituencies we have to run it by, the most important of which are the Board of Alders and the mayor. Until we have briefed all the groups,” it would be premature to discuss details, said city Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson. ​“Peoples’ daily lives depend on us getting this right. I want to make sure that change is something people can put their fingerprints on.”

The plan’s highlights include, according to three people familiar with the details:

• Increasing the fee for an annual license for a food truck to park on the street and sell at a metered space from $200 to $5,100 (on top of the $200 a year paid for a permit and $250 for health department certification). The city’s rationale: That’s how much it would cost to park full time at the space and feed the meter full-time for a full year. The license holder would obtain the ability to park in the spot permanently without having to fight for it each day. Food cart vendors, as opposed to food truck vendors, would pay $1,000 a year for a license to operate on sidewalks, under one proposed scenario, said mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer, stressing that this is all tentative. He added that a public forum will take place on the subject on Feb. 8 at 3 p.m; all vendors will be invited. 

• Holding a lottery for a set number of licenses. Then hold an auction, with bidding starting at $5,100, for additional licenses. The rationael: Make sure everyone gets a fair shot at the first batch of licenses. Then see how much the market will bear to bring in more revenue for the city.

• Creating four zones in the city where food trucks can congregate: Downtown, Ingalls Rink (the Yale Whale), Long Wharf, and Cedar Street (outside Yale-New Haven Hospital). Rationale: That’s where zones have unofficially, organically sprung up. There need to be set rules, with updated zoning, in part to end turf wars and put all operators on an even playing field. (To clear up confusion based on outdated zoning ideas, as occurred when an operator got booted from operating on one side, but not another, of York Street.)

• Creating a single power source that truck operators plug into at sites like Long Wharf and Ingalls Rink. Vendors would be required to pay an extra fee to use the electricity. Rationale: They currently keep their engines running all day or operate polluting gas-powered generators to keep fridges running. New Haven is trying to go greener.

Permission to operate a food truck in New York City runs into six figures a year — even before entering auctions. (Some other cities’ fees are comparable or lower: Houston; Boston; Portland, Oregon.)

The proposed New Haven fee hike bombed when mentioned to food truck operators serving up sliders and barbecue on Broadway in front of the Apple Store and Barnes & Noble Wednesday.

Jose Perez, owner of The Meat Truck, said that paying $5,100 each year for a license would put him out of business. The New Haven native said permits from the health department and the building department already cost him $500 a year. He also pays for permits in other cities where he does business.

“There are only certain spots in the city where we can make money during the day,” he said. ​“That fee would make it virtually impossible for us to make money.”

Perez, who has been operating his truck for about a year and half, said that it cost him about $50,000 to build his truck. Forking over 10 percent of that cost to the city each year — ​“that’s crazy,” he said.

Perez said he’d like to own a brick and mortar store version of his truck. His truck has been a way to test whether his concept could work. But if the city jacks up his license fee, he’d shut the truck down.

“Restaurants don’t even pay that kind of money for permits,” he said. ​“We’re helping the local economy, and because of the health department guidelines we have to meet, we’re cleaner than people’s houses and these brick and mortar restaurants.”

Lunch Box 23 truck owner Maurice Watson had a similar reaction when he heard the proposed hike in the fee. ​“Every dime counts in this business,” he said. He has owned his truck for three years; he said higher fees would hurt business, and moving from his location on Broadway and his customer base could kill it.

“This is our bread and butter,” said Watson, who participated in the city’s first food truck festival last summer. ​“On the one hand it seems they’re advocating for us and supporting food trucks, but on the other hand they want to do this.”

Mary (pictured; she didn’t give her last name) was working the 744 Express truck on Chapel Street out in front of the Yale University Art Gallery. The truck is an offshoot of the 744 West Bar & Grill in West Haven. She said she’s willing to give the city the benefit of the doubt that it won’t raise the permit fee without talking to truck operators in the city and telling them what they’re going to get in exchange for all that additional money.

“Of course it seems high, but I’m very confident that we’ll get a call from the city and they will explain what we would get for that much money,” she said. ​“I’m not going to worry until they contact us.”

Two factors have propelled the fate of food trucks to prominence in recent months: the popularity of the growing industry; and a city crackdown on trucks operating in illegal spaces or otherwise ignoring rules. Click here and here for background stories on that. And click on the above audio file to listen in on a pow-ww between Nemerson and two food truck operators, Caseus’ Jason Sobocinski and Ay! Arepa’s Ernesto Garcia, on WNHH radio’s ​“Kitchen Sync.”