Monday, January 9, 2012
Oakland Shuts Down Yet Another Food Truck Event, Fines Landowner
Food on Wheels Jesse Hirsch — Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:09 PM
Despite operating on a private lot, a small rotating food truck market at 21st Street and Webster was shut down last week by the City of Oakland. A $2,000 fine was levied on Hisuk Dong, owner of the event’s vacant lot space (he also owns nearby Mua).
DanVy Vu, owner of the Streatery food truck, ran this erstwhile popular food truck event. Too tiny to really be called a food pod, 21Web brought in just one truck for two hours each weekday at lunch. “We were so small, and we were operating on private property, so I thought the city was going to leave us alone,” said Vu, who launched the event in October.
The official reason for shutting down 21Web was the lack of a permit to sell fast food, Vu said. The vacant parcel was zoned for cafes but evidently someone in City Hall didn’t think that was sufficient. Vu suspects this smackdown was the direct result of a complaint from neighbors. Though there are few restaurants in the immediate vicinity of 21st and Webster, large office complexes like Kaiser Permanente have their own food-service facilities.
“I think one of those cafeterias felt threatened and called in a complaint,” Vu said. “If it hadn’t been a fast food permit, the city probably would have found some other issue.”
Gail Lillian was about to park her Liba Falafel truck at 21Web for the first time when the event was shut down. Lillian, who helped develop Oakland’s recently approved interim food pod ordinance, said a lot of her customers have been asking, “Why does Oakland hate food trucks?”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of hate,” she said. “I just don’t think the city can get it together. They don’t want to keep food trucks out, but they don’t have a leader who knows how to keep us in.”
In related news, another lunchtime food truck pod recently launched on a private Uptown lot. Shoot me an email if you’d like to know the location before its near-inevitable closure. Officially sanctioned food pod events will likely not commence before March.
Comments? Tips? Get in touch at Jesse.Hirsch@EastBayExpress.com.
Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
I like how the small business owners complain about the Occupy movement, and support a local government that shuts down small business ridiculously.
like
dislikeThis is totally ridiculous on the part of Oakland. There is no argument here in the favor of Oakland on this matter, it's simply wrong and they should be involved in the uses of PRIVATE land!
cases like this reinforce the argument that we could use a whole lot less tax and fining and government regulation and therefore, personnel - in other words - CUT the budget starting with this department. Do [they] truly have nothing else to do but squash this persons enterprise? Perhaps they can check out Pearmain off 98th ave where we just opened and remove a few tons of debris, mattresses and property discarded there, maybe shutter a crack den, and improve the likelihood that our customers might feel safe coming to East Oakland, leading to me providing a few jobs for oaklanders int he process. We just moved here and have yet to get a single customer who actually lives in Oakland to our business.
Well, well, isn't this shocking news. Trust me, I get zero satisfaction from saying "I told you so", but I did in fact tell you so. While it's been true and painfully obvious that the city lacks leadership in this (and maybe all other issues), are we umm... forgetting about the City Council members who claimed they were leading this charge and paving the way? This very paper quoted me on this, after the City Council approved what I knew was a flimsy temporary food pod ordinance. I think my quote was something along the lines of "it's a load of crap."
So now, only weeks after the Kaplan and Brunner held their cute little press conference and mobile food party at City Hall has ended, they took their victory lap, and all the credit for taming the awful beast and making the city safe for mobile food pods (albeit temporarily and with a lot of restrictions and cost prohibitive measures, but victorious nonetheless), the ONE AND ONLY mini-food-pod in Oakland is squashed like a bug. Where the hell are Kaplan and Brunner now? Could it be that they are resting comfortably in their offices collecting their paychecks and pretending that this didn't happen? HEAVENS NO!
The last time I checked, the formal process for shutting down a food pod, individual vendor, or other such activity is that it is complaint driven. If the city received a complaint, they would have to notify the property owner, or event planner that a complaint was filed, and the OPD would shut it down (refer to "Bites On Broadway"). It may very well be that a complaint was filed, but my spidey-senses tell me otherwise. I know for a fact that "certain" city staff members have made it their business to take down mobile food events. Trust me, or trust the news if you haven't read it or been affected by the First Friday crackdown, the shut-down of events at my (former) warehouse space on 24th Street, etc.: complaints aren't driving this. OPD isn't responding to complaints like they did with Bites on Broadway. City staff members are admittedly doing internet research to uncover these events and they are scouring the books to find previously unenforced regs to take the events out. Some of you may write me off as a crazy conspiracy-theorist, or bitter mobile food vendor on a revenge tear, but it's really not that deep, and I have actual written proof of the fact that staff are conducting internet research to uncover these events. So there.
It's clear there's not a single council member, or anyone else in a position of authority who gives enough of a damn to do anything about any of it. Nobody seems to care that gobs and gobs of staff time (read-our tax money) is spent (2+ years and counting) writing and re-writing, submitting and re-submitting proposals for expansion of the original mobile food ordinance. Similarly, the City appears to give its A-OK on staff doing internet research to uncover the evil-doers in the hideous underworld of mobile food events. I for one, am thoroughly and completely sickened and appalled and really, really tired of Oakland squandering yet another opportunity to actually do something for actual community and economic development in this beleaguered city. Not at all surprised, but really, really over it.
Author Archives
-
Changing of the Guard
- Apr 24, 2012
-
Fusebox Opening Next Week in West Oakland
- Apr 23, 2012
- More»
