While the original public comment period was set to end tomorrow, DCRA decided early this week to extend the deadline (PDF) to March 1, 2012 at 5pm.
If you haven’t sent your comments in to DCRA yet (email DCVendingRegs@dc.gov), please make sure to personalize your message and perhaps cite some specifics from the proposed regulations. My favorite document is the redlined version of the vending regulations that just shows you the proposed changes made to the regulations from its current form (PDF document). It only takes a few minutes to read the changes!
While the DC Food Truck Association is advocating changes to provisions that limit Sweets Trucks to 10 Minutes, Zoning of Food Trucks and Shorter Hours for Food Trucks Than for Restaurants, there are some other points that we all can weigh in on, even positive ones! For example, section 554 addresses customer lines:
A vendor shall ensure that waiting customers do not completely block the public sidewalk. A vendor shall comply with this subsection by asking customers, through verbal communication and signage on the vehicle, to not impede pedestrian access along the public sidewalks.
Sounds reasonable to me! I know that some of us veteran food truck patrons complain about how some customer lines organically form to block pedestrian traffic.
Lastly, Tim Carman has a nice post summarizing the 1400+ public comments up until this point. The main takeaways are:
- only about 80 of those comments are against food trucks
- DCRA appears to place less weight on comments that are form letters that were just copied & pasted
- DCRA pays particular attention to comments written by industry groups, like the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) and the DC Food Truck Association
