Quote:

Team Healy - CORRUPTION YOU CAN SEE!!!!

maybe the solution is to move them further away from Subway and other stores serving food.

Jersey City's food vendor trucks cope with legal rules, and the law of the streets
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
By ADAM ROBB

FOR THE JERSEY JOURNAL

By city law, food vendor trucks are only allowed to stay in one spot for a certain amount of time.


Sometimes this law is enforced by legitimate authorities. Sometimes it is governed by the law of the streets. Just ask Jose Ramos, the operator of the Kitchen Cafe Truck.

Recently, the owner of a competing truck approached Ramos at Exchange Place to give him a third and final warning to move.

Refusing to leave and get out of his antagonist's reach, Ramos stood back in his truck and watched as his register was first punched, then pushed to the floor. Still unsatisfied, the man spit in Ramos' face, striking him on the left cheek before fleeing for his own truck.

"He said to no longer sell food here because he's been here longer. Subway talked to him. He said Subway don't want us here. He told me Subway and (another establishment) said it's OK for his truck and the Louisiana Spice Truck to park here, but no one else."

The manager of Subway, across the street at 1 Exchange Place, declined to comment.

Ramos has owned a lunch truck for the past 10 years.

"I pay my tax, I pay everything, I have my license," he said. "I lived here for 15 years."

But he was still hesitant to call the police and complain about threats for fear the police would drive all the trucks from Exchange Place in the course of an investigation.

Jersey City Councilman Steve Fulop, an occasional customer at the trucks, sees the trucks as partly responsible for the loss of brick and mortar businesses like the Green Cow at Liberty Towers and the Magic Johnson Deli, at 95 Greene, which both shuttered this spring.

"It's unfair to solely point the finger at the trucks, but they are a reason," he said.

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Tempers flare over intense competition among food truck operators in Downtown Jersey City

Published: Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Adam Robb/For The Jersey Journal

Food truck owner Jose Ramos said the competition is so fierce in Downtown Jersey City that another food truck operator broke his cash register and spit at him in June.

With high winds knocking debris from construction sites and other emergencies, flashing sirens aren't unusual on Hudson Street in Downtown Jersey City.

But on a recent June day, it was a fleet of illegally parked lunch trucks that caught the attention of police and sent the food vendors packing with $42 tickets and a day's worth of unsold food.

City law dictates that trucks can only stay in one spot for 20 to 40 minutes depending on the license they hold.

Ask the drivers who they believe phone the police every time they're asked the move and accusations abound. They don't just blame local businesses, they blame each other in what has become a sometimes heated turf battle.

Jose Ramos recently collected spilled bills, coins and receipts from the cramped floor of this three-man operation, the Kitchen Cafe truck, while he continued to pass orders out of a window where punches had been thrown just moments before.

His cash register, the victim of one of those swings, is broken in three places, but still functional.

Ramos blames the owner of a competing truck, who he said walked down the block warning other truck operators that he was about to give his third and final warning for Ramos to move.

Ramos refused to leave, standing back in the truck, just out of reach, as he watched as his register was first punched then pushed to the floor. Still unsatisfied, the man spit in Ramos' face striking him on the left cheek before fleeing for his own truck, Ramos said.

"He said to no longer sell food here because he's been here longer," Ramos said. "Subway talked to him, he said Subway don't want us here."

Ramos explained that the man told him Subway and another downtown eatery have said it is okay for the man's truck and another popular truck, the Louisiana Spice Truck, to park there, but they don't want other trucks around.

The manager of Subway, across the street at 1 Exchange Place, declined to comment.

One local restaurant manager, though, admitted that even he buys breakfast from the trucks. When a driver asked him if he would call the police to complain about the competition but he refused.

"They got kicked out last week, why would I complain?'' the manager said. "It doesn't bother me."

Ramos has owned a lunch truck for the last 10 years.

"I pay my tax, I pay everything, I have my license,'' he said. "I lived here for 15 years."


Adam Robb/For The Jersey Journal
Food truck owner Jose Ramos' cash register was cracked in three places by an angry competitor last month but he said he didn't call the police fearing they'd give all of the truck operators in the Exchange Place area of Jersey City a hard time.


But Ramos hesitates to call the police on the other driver out of fear that all the trucks would be banned from Exchange Place.

Banning the trucks from certain areas ? they're already prohibited at Journal Square ? is one of many ideas the City Council is considering as it crafts a new itinerant license ordinance.

Jersey City Councilman Steven Fulop, an occasional customer at the trucks, said he wants a clearly outlined policy governing the trucks, but Fulop is rushing to their aid.

"They don't pay the same real estate and property taxes a business over there does,'' Fulop said. "There's a surplus of trucks in the area sitting outside tax paying businesses."

Fulop partly blames the food trucks for the closing of Green Cow at Liberty Towers and the Magic Johnson Deli at 95 Greene this spring.

"It's unfair to solely point the finger at the trucks but they are a reason," he said.

While Fulop knows the City Council is pressed to solve an overabundance of licenses, issued illegally by a city health official, he warns that it doesn't mean all the trucks should get to stay in business.

"As it stands today, it doesn't mean the trucks have the ability to break the law," he said.

Couple of general thoughts on the matter.

1) Owning a food truck/cart is a legitimate business as well. I realize this is an inference of words, but when one says "hurting businesses" and "counterproductive to businesses" then that's a fair implication. Joe Shmoe Restaurateur is no better or worse an individual/business than Joe Shlemiel Food Truck Operator.

2) If the license fee is too low to make up the revenue lost from a place that is paying taxes on a brick and mortar store, then there are other ways to try and make that up without imposing rules on moving the truck every 20 or 40 minutes. Ordinances like that seem more frustrating than logical. Stop serving food every 20 minutes to move? How far do they have to move? Two inches? A parking spot? Around the corner? How strict is the time limit - will they get ticketed if a customer is waiting for their food and it expires?

On a similar matter and just a question, does this also apply to non-truck vendors like a hot dog cart?

In any case, the city could instead raise the fee significantly to make up for those lost dollars, or perhaps force the trucks to charge a sales tax like any other business.

3) Food trucks are a big part of a city's character and identity. NYC is obviously known worldwide for being the place for food and cuisine but places like Los Angeles with their Mexican-American food have had good long-standing relationships with street vendors. Even places like New Brunswick have embraced the greasy spoon trucks that serve the college kids there as a tourist attraction. That one that "invented" the Fat Darrell, the "throw everything on a sandwich roll" is actually pretty famous. He's been on Food Network a few times and got a nice writeup in Maxim a few years ago, among other publications.

Jersey City council wrestles with one result of suspected corruption: Twice as many food vendor licenses as law allows

Tuesday, July 06, 2010
By MELISSA HAYES
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City officials say they are grappling to find a solution to the overabundance of licenses for food trucks operating on city streets.

Council President Peter Brennan has said solving the problem is one of his top goals for this year and he hopes to have a solution by September.


Brennan and Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop, who represents the Downtown areas where many of the trucks congregate, are serving on a committee with members of the Police Department, Law Department and Health Department crafting a new city ordinance.

Fulop said there currently as many as 400 licenses out there, even though a city ordinance allows for 175 - 150 licenses for itinerant eating and drinking establishments that prepare food on-site and 25 licenses for itinerant catering establishments that prepare food off-site.

Police say that former Jersey City Health Officer Joseph Castagna, who was charged last July in the FBI's major corruption sting, is under police investigation for issuing extra licenses and possibly pocketing the fees. He is now retired.

Most of those licenses, which are good for a year, expired last week, but Brennan said license holders can apply for temporary permits.

Jersey City First Assistant Corporation Counsel Joanne Monahan has suggested the City Council renew all the licenses because it is the not necessarily the vendors' fault they were issued permits beyond the permitted number.

Another issue the council has to wrestle with are restrictions on the licenses.

Trucks that prepare food off site must move every 20 minutes and the others must move every 40 minutes under the city ordinance, which also sets restrictions on how close trucks can be to restaurants.

License holders have complained about these rules, saying it's unfair to make them move so frequently.

The administration has drafted a new ordinance that would allow trucks to stay in one spot up to three hours and would allow all license holders to renew, two measures Fulop strongly opposes.

Fulop argues that the extensions and extra licenses would hurt struggling businesses, creating more empty storefronts.

"My belief is if you extend it to three hours, you are hurting a business that is actually paying taxes in their storefront," he said. "You're being counterproductive to businesses that you want to attract to fill vacant stores."

Brennan has suggested banning the trucks from Exchange Place or Newport, where businesses frequently complain the trucks are breaking the law. The current law bans them from Journal Square.

But Fulop, who supports the status quo, said Brennan's proposal would ban the trucks from the places they want to be and would result in trucks lined up a block away from the restricted area.