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Assemblyman Wants to Ban Food Trucks From Schools

  • Spence Cooper
  • March 13, 2012

Government regulation to prevent corporate monopolies, or to enforce pollution violations, child labor laws, and tax evasion is one thing, but petty state legislation limiting where food trucks and lunch wagons can operate is pure idiocy — as in this case.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a state assemblyman wants to significantly limit where lunch wagons can operate, keeping them even farther from schools than marijuana dispensaries.

Assemblyman Monning’s legislation could put many of the mobile kitchens out of business, notes the Times, just as the industry is surging with creativity.

The problem, according to Assemblyman William Monning (D-Carmel), is that although trucks specializing in healthy gourmet fare are getting media attention and even their own TV shows, they still make up a small fraction of the vendors.

Monning is singling out food trucks that sell burgers, sodas and high-calorie ice cream. He wants to ban all food trucks and pushcarts from within 1,500 feet of elementary, middle and high schools from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on school days. Pot stores must be 600 feet from schools.

“The reality is the trucks that are coming to the schools are pushing low-cost, sugar-sweetened beverages and high-sodium snacks,” he said. “The kids aren’t paying $17 for a risotto from a gourmet food truck.”

Erin Glenn, chief executive of the California United Family Loncheros Association, says the legislation is too broad. It doesn’t address, for example, the proximity of stores where students can “buy a bag of Hot Cheetos and a bottle of Coke,” Glenn said.

“This bill won’t do anything to cut children’s access to unhealthy food,” said Matt Geller, chief executive of the Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association.

“They won’t eat at the food trucks, but they are going to eat at the McDonald’s nearby. They are going to eat at the convenience store, the gas station.”

Geller, whose association represents about 150 new-style trucks serving healthier plates, says Monning’s bill suggests that food trucks are more dangerous than marijuana.

Mireya Ingham, an administrator at a local charity, follows her favorite food trucks on Twitter so she knows when they arrive in her East Hollywood neighborhood.

Assemblyman Wants to Ban Food Trucks From Schools“It’s a shame the state would deny people the opportunity to do what they are passionate about,” said Ingham. “So many of the food trucks are doing such good things with fresh foods and ingredients.”

For the last three or four years, the popularity of food trucks, or catering trucks have exploded from New York to Los Angeles, becoming a successful Foodie craze, with many serving high-end fast food to taste savvy consumers.

Users are able to access Twitter and Facebook to track their favorite catering trucks’ daily location as well as specials. Catering companies like Kogi BBQ combined the use of Twitter as a real time marketing and promotional tool and Internet based bulletin to “Tweet”customers with the latest menu items and truck locations.

If California legislators want to do something constructive toward eliminating children’s access to unhealthy food, why not start with the National School Lunch Program, where the USDA has bought 7 million pounds of pink slime — meat scraps and connective tissue normally used for dog food — for public school cafeterias.

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