NORTHAMPTON — As Northampton continues to traverse a post-COVID landscape, the city’s Ordinance Review Committee is exploring the possibility of bringing food trucks to the city’s downtown areas.
The committee held a discussion, brought forth by At Large City Councilor Garrick Perry, to review of the city’s current ordinance on food trucks as the city moves toward a “renaissance,” according to Perry. The ordinance was created over a decade ago.
“Part of it comes from my recent experiences in Northampton, where post-COVID, we are now a city that closes at essentially 9 [p.m.]. I see room to look at the food truck ordinance to maybe use it as a tool to help,” Perry said. “I know from my years in the restaurant service and entertainment industry that it does cost to keep restaurants open for places, but I also know when you have an entertainment-based community like we have, when you have bars that are open, entertainment going but no food, not only does it make people more likely to leave your city because they want to get food, but it also makes it a little more dangerous. I always make sure that people have food so they can have a drink and be safe and all of that.”
Perry said the meeting was specifically intended for discussions around operational hours for food trucks and where the trucks would be allowed to operate in the city.
“I wanted to look at in this food truck ordinance [and see] where we can have food trucks,” Perry said. “I’m really interested in the parking lot aspect because I do know that downtown parking is very limited, and if we were going to have food trucks, I do not want to hinder people being able to park close to the places that they are.”
Perry added he was excited for this to be the start of these discussions and was looking forward to getting feedback from the business community. He added if the community was looking to establish a more vibrant downtown, this conversation was a nice starting place.
The current mobile food truck vehicles ordinance was added in 2013 and states, “No person or entity shall operate a mobile food vehicle on any street or other public property without a mobile food vehicle permit issued by the Northampton Police Department.” The ordinance also states that mobile food vehicles are not permitted to operate in the Central Business or Florence Village Districts.
Ahead of the committee’s meeting, Alan Wolf, chief of staff to Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, sent out a Google form to 44 different business owners in the city to gauge what people felt about the current food truck ordinance and if they think any changes are necessary.
Wolf explained that just under half of respondents were owners or managers from restaurants, while 18% were retail. One entertainment/arts venue person responded, and the remainder of respondents were property owners and people in professional services.
The first general question listed in Wolf’s survey was whether respondents believed it was time to consider changes to the food truck prohibitions to the community’s downtowns. Wolf said responses were heavily focused on Northampton’s downtown, specifically.
According to Wolf, 43% of all respondents said it was time to have this discussion, but about 25% of respondents were “pretty hard and fast against it all the way through.”
Wolf said for the most part, professional service and retail owners who responded are supportive of at least reexamining things. Restaurant and property owners are most skeptical.
“To the extent that they do — and they do demonstrate some flexibility to have the conversation — they really want to make sure that whatever happens, it’s fair and that it takes into account the operational challenges of brick-and-mortar restaurants,” Wolf said.
Some survey respondents suggested that food trucks only be allowed late in the night or just in Florence. Wolf said while there was a lot of caution in responses, there was still creative thinking on how this could be addressed or improved upon.
“The two areas where people were most open to the idea were late night after regular restaurants had closed; that was 60% of people whose hearts were open to that possibility,” Wolf explained.
Many respondents also noted that the city would need to find an efficient way of managing food trucks so they have protection agaisnt competition from brick-and-mortars.
The survey also asked where food tucks could operate, and most respondents suggested public parks or recreation areas.
“I think there is a solid group of folks who really hope that there is a way to drive food trucks up and onto the grass in Pulaski Park. That is something that excites people. Parking lots, side streets or designated pop-up areas come up,” Wolf added. “That is a sense of where people are hoping this might happen if it did.”
When asked directly if allowing a limited number of mobile food vendors downtown would help or hurt its vitality, 13 of 20 restaurant owners or managers surveyed said it would hurt. Professional and retail representatives in the survey said it could be a foot traffic driver, while property owners remained cautious, Wolf explained.
“For the most part, I think my takeaway is people are nervous but they’re willing to listen,” said Wolf, in closing of his presentation of the responses.
When opened to public comment, residents and restaurant owners expressed mixed feelings about whether the city should change its ordinance.
“In full disclosure, I am in favor of getting rid of these ordinances entirely, but I am also very excited about at least lessening it, and I come to this as someone who lives here, who works here and who attempts to go to night life here,” said Northampton resident Ace Tayloe. “Councilor Perry was very correct when he said after 9 [p.m.] there’s nothing available … I think there is a lack of competition and a big need for such things to be present.”
Judy Herrell, owner of Herrell’s Ice Cream, said she was not completely opposed to food trucks, but she still had a lot of reservations on potential changes to the ordinance. She explained Herrell’s used to be open until 11:30 p.m. weeknights and until midnight on the weekends, but that was when the Calvin Theater and other venues were still offering late-night entertainment.
“It’s not like that anymore. However, if the Calvin reopened, if we had more music venues that ended after 10 o’clock, we would probably be open later for those things, and I know that other restaurants have felt the same way,” Herrell said. “COVID kind of decimated the whole music and nighttime scene downtown. That has to be rebuilt, and that’s going to take some time.”
Herrell added that she hopes the city is cautious when exploring amendments to the food truck ordinance.
“I just would like everybody to be very, very careful at looking how to do this if they do it at all and really, really think about how it’s going to affect people, where you’re going to put it, what hours, things like that,” she said.
Jeremiah Micka, the owner of Union Station Northampton, said he was 100% against food trucks in downtown, calling it unfair competition. He added that brick and mortars have staff and property taxes — worries that food trucks don’t usually have.
“For them to come in during peak times and take business for special events, say for Pride, finally have the town full, vibrant, people coming out to all the restaurants and 10 food trucks show up, that doesn’t help anybody, especially downtown businesses,” said Micka.
Before COVID, he said the city tried allowing food trucks in parking lots for late night food, but that experience yielded a lot of trash that people did not pick up.
“If this for some odd reason does go forward, there needs to be preparation for clean up,” added Micka. “As a brick and mortar community, we’ve put a lot of time, money and effort into building this town, and to let somebody come in as a husband and wife duo and mop up during busy times is not beneficial to anyone.”
The remainder of the public comment period saw business owners express skepticism or flat out rejection of any potential changes to the ordinance, while other residents were open to the idea.
Following public comment, Perry said there will be more discussions about the ordinance in the future.
“I want to be very proactive, and I want to look at the future of Northampton. It’s gonna take all of us working together and making sure we don’t hurt businesses,” said Perry. “We have no power to just create an ordinance, so we’re going to create a report [with] recommendations, there will be more discussions … this is not the last you will hear about this.”
