The Appleton Common Council met 12/15/2021. The item that garnered the most discussion was the proposed changes to the street vendor regulations, specifically as they relate to food trucks. The item as received from the Municipal Services Committee increased the number of food truck licenses from 4 to 8 and eliminated the current requirement for food trucks to park at least 50 feet away from the main entrance of a business that sold similar food products. Although there had been an attempt during the Municipal Services committee meeting to keep the 50-foot parking limit but make it apply to all restaurant locations not simply those that sold similar products, that effort had failed at committee.
Jennifer Stephany the Executive Director of Appleton Downtown Inc. was the one person who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting. She said that ADI supported increasing the number Speaking on Food Truck Vendors, but they would also like to see the item amended to include language that would prevent food trucks from parking directly in front of brick-and-mortar establishments. She stated that Kyle Fritz who manages the Fox Valley Food Truck Association and also owns a brick-and-mortar restaurant asked her to let them all know that he supported increasing the licenses to 8 and also including language preventing food trucks from parking right in front of restaurants.
When the Common Council took up the item for discussion and action, Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) made a motion to amend the item to include the language “No sales shall be made within fifty (50) feet of the main entrance of a licensed food establishment during the hours said business is open unless written permission is granted”.
Alderperson Joe Martin (District 4) was concerned that food truck owners were going to have difficulty measuring 50 feet, so he thought it would be better to require food trucks to park at least 2 parking stalls away from the establishments. He asked Director of Public Paula Vandehey if she could tell them the distance between parking meters.
Director Vandehey said it varied because there is excess space between some stalls, so she thought it would be difficult to use parking stalls as the point of reference for the ordinance. She thought the 50-foot measurement was the better way to go.
Alderperson Fenton said she was disappointed that this amendment had failed at the committee. The original issue staff had had was with the unenforceable nature of applying the parking ban only to establishments that sold the “same or similar” products which this amendment handled.
She said that some of the arguments at the committee meeting had been about the city regulating competition. She stressed that the city encouraged competition, but that government at every level regulates unfair competition. Bring and mortar restaurants have much more overhead than food trucks in terms of taxes, employment, staffing, and what they have had to deal with during the pandemic. The idea behind the amendment was not to squelch competition but to level the playing field by not allowing a business that doesn’t have as much of an investment parking right in front of another restaurant. She didn’t think the brick-and-mortar restaurants in downtown Appleton had any issue with food trucks being there as long as it was either outside business hours or simply away from the brick-and-mortar restaurants. She urged her colleagues to support the amendment.
Alderperson Joe Prohaska (District 14) said he would have no idea how far 50 feet was unless he took a tape measure and measure it. He asked if it would be more feasible to require food trucks to park at least two parking stalls away from the entrances of restaurants.
Director Vandehey said she guessed that would work, but she pointed out that the requirement before had been 50 feet. The only thing different between the old regulation and the proposed new regulation was that it applied to all restaurants and not just ones that sold similar products. She thought most of the good trucks already on the road have abided by the 50-foot rule, and she also thought that it was a businesses responsibility to have a good understanding of what 50 feet looked like. However, she said a distance of 2 stalls would work as well.
Alderperson Prohaska made and amendment to the proposed amendment that “50 feet” be removed and replaced with “2 full parking stalls”. He thought this would make it easier on everybody.
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) appreciated all of the effort that had been put in on this topic by Appleton Downtown Inc, city staff, and the alderpersons. She liked using parking stalls as measurements instead of feet but she was concerned that normal parking stalls were only about 20 feet long so this would reduce the overall distance by about 10 feet. She would prefer a 3-stall length, and, barring that, would stick with the original 50-foot language of the amendment.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) thought that park of being a street vendor was understanding the environment one was working in, and he didn’t think it was a stretch to think they could handle ascertaining what 50 feet was. In fact, he thought 2 parking stalls might be more challenging because parking spaces did not necessarily align with the entrance of an establishment. [It did my heart good to hear the first two alderpersons who spoke on this bring up every single one of the concerns I had with this amendment to the amendment.]
Alderperson Schultz asked Director Vandehey if there had historically been many complaints based upon the proximity issue and how issues had been dealt with.
Director Vandehey responded that they receive a few complaints each year and those complaints have been dealt with by the city reaching out to the food truck vendor and having a discussion.
Alderperson Prohaska said he would vote for the amendment whether it was Alderperson Fenton’s language or his own. His change was just an attempt to make things easier for everybody and he wasn’t trying to take 10 feet off the distance. He asked if he could amend his amendment to the amendment.
Mayor Woodford told him they couldn’t amend to the third degree.
Alderperson Prohaska said that, based on discussion in the Municipal Services Committee, any changes they made now were not necessarily permanent and the new Council in April would be free to take it up again. He had wanted to suggest doing a 6-month trial, but that was something of a moot point since April was 4 months away and the new Council would be free to take it up if any issues arose.
Director Vandehey reminded the Council that vendors do make a financial commitment when they take out the permits for the year. They take them out believing that those rules will stay the same for the year so she hoped the city wouldn’t be making any mid-year changes on them.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) said the parking stall rule worked until there was a business on a street that didn’t have parking stalls. It would work great on College Avenue but not necessarily some of the side streets. He was in favor of using the 50-foot guideline.
Alderperson Alfheim said she thought they were looking at these rule changes with the assumption that there had only been a handful of complaints in the past, but they were about to increase the number of permits by 100% which also carried with it the possibility of increased complaints which concerned her. She was very cognizant of the challenges the food industry was currently experiencing, so she thought it was important to be thoughtful about how they set this rule and not make the assumption that they could just adjust it in the future because they may have lost some businesses by then. She appreciated the time and thought going into this compromise and the effort to make things work for both the food trucks and the brick-and-mortar restaurants.
She reiterated that she would vote against the amendment to the amendment and stick wit the 50-foot language. She would have preferred the amendment to the amendment had reference 3 stall lengths instead of 2.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) asked if it was possible to base the distance on time instead of feet. He suggested requiring that food trucks have to park a 1- or 2-minute walk from a restaurant or wait 10 minutes until after a business has closed before they park there.
Mayor Woodford said, “I’ll field that question. No.”
Alderperson Michael Smith (District 10) wanted clarification from Attorney Behrens on Alderperson Prohaska’s statement that the new Council could take up this item again in April if they wanted. His understanding was that, unless it was substantially changed, it couldn’t come up again for another year once passed.
City Attorney Behrens answered that he may have been recalling an old Council rule that required the council to way a calendar year before taking a passed item up again; however, that rule subsequently changed, so once the Council turns over, which it does every April, passed items were fair game for that new Council to look at and make amendments to. He did reiterate Director Vandehey’s point that businesses have made plans and substantial mid-year or mid-license changes needed to be weighed very carefully.
There was no further discussion on the amendment to the amendment. So, the Council voted, and it failed by a 4-10 vote with Alderpersons Martin Wolff, Prohaska, and Chad Doran (District 15) being the only ones in favor of it. (Alderperson Matt Reed (District 8 ) was excused from the meeting, accounting for the 14 votes instead of the normal full 15.)
They then returned to the amendment as originally made by Alderperson Fenton.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5) asked what would happen to a license if this amendment passed and a food truck violated the rule.
Director Vandehey said that, in the past, if they’ve had a complaint about a food truck, they would contact the food truck licensee and let them know that if they continue to be in violation that their license would possibly not be renewed the following year. She said that usually took care of the issue.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) encouraged the Council members to support the amendment which solved the unenforceable language issue that had originally be raised by the Attorney’s Office and then went on to state, “when we think about the city’s role, and we talk about how we’re not here to stifle competition, we need to remember that it’s also our responsibility to support economic development, and we need to be doing everything we can to make sure that every business succeeds. We need to avoid a scenario where two different types of businesses, the brick-and-mortar vs the mobile food trucks, end up undermining each other and creating an environment where one or the other can’t succeed. So, this amendment covers all of those bases. I think that the language certainly needed to be cleaned up, but to get rid of the 50-foot rule would create a very problematic scenario in which we were not being responsible and also after all of the work and discussion with staff, with business owners, with the community, it also would not be responsive. We have been clearly asked to address an issue so that it doesn’t become an issue. This is our opportunity to be proactive, be responsible, and be responsive.”
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) supported the amendment was grateful that it had cleaner verbiage that the current code language. She did want to make sure though that if, in a year, if they started hearing about problems created by this change that they revisit the issue.
Alderperson Doran said that after the Municipal Services Committee meeting, he was able to have some more conversations regarding this topic and he was now more comfortable with this proposed amendment than he had been at the committee meeting. He honestly didn’t think that the 50-foot rule was preventing issues, but they wouldn’t know that for certain unless the rule was eliminated. Given that they had not received any complaints about the 50-foot rule currently being in place, allowing it to remain was something that he could support now that he had a better understanding of it.
There was no further discussion on the amendment and the Council voted 13-1 to approve it, with Alderperson Martin being the lone nay vote.
They then moved on to discussion about the item as amended.
Alderperson Smith said that he had problems with the overall concept. Firstly, he disagreed with the statement in the memo regarding this that the number of 4 food truck licenses had been arrived at arbitrarily. “I was on Council at that time and we did not do it arbitrarily. It was chosen to keep them spread out amongst the Avenue and also for that reason to protect or help the brick-and-mortar businesses from too much direct competition.” Secondly, he had gone back and looked at the original section of the municipal code that this dealt with and saw that it currently allowed 8 Street Occupancy Permits for mobile sidewalk/amenity strip units and 4 licenses for on-street units which they were now contemplating increasing to 8. So, really it seemed that they were looking at the possibility of 16 vendors total (8 carts and 8 trucks).
Director Vandehey confirmed that was correct.
Alderperson Smith also had some questions regarding the hours the street vendors could operate. They were 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM, except on College Avenue between Drew Street and Richmond Street, where sales were allowed between 8:00 AM and 4:00 AM.
Director Vandehey confirmed that was correct; however, the issue before the Council was how close food trucks could park to restaurants when the restaurants were open.
Alderperson Smith said that there could be a total of 8 carts and 8 food trucks, so 16 total, on College Avenue from 8AM to 4AM. He wasn’t sure if that was in the best interest of businesses. He also said he was a little perturbed that the food truck licenses expired in 2 weeks and they were sitting there discussing making changes to the regulations. He said it would have been nice to have had more time and not have had to deal with the urgency to get something done in such a short time frame.
Director Vandehey said that the memo staff provided was dated October 25, so this had been before committee and Council for 2 months.
Alderperson Wolff said that he had consulted with his constituents and talked to business owners on the avenue. At the end of the day, more people wanted this than not, so he was going to support it fully because the people wanted it.
Alderperson Alfheim believed that what Alderperson Wolf said was correct and a majority of people wanted this. The only thing she asked was that either the city of Appleton Downtown Inc conduct a survey next year after the summer to find out how business owners felt things went.
Alderperson Smith clarified that his concern was not about the memo that came from the department heads but rather the fact that the licenses were expiring in a couple weeks and there really weren’t any other options other than to act on what was before them.
Alderperson Hartzheim asked to call the question.
The Council voted 12-2 to approve the amended item with Alderperson Martin and Smith voting nay.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=905560&GUID=6CD1C4E8-1A90-4B10-9951-294C18E0BAF1
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