Filed under: Local Food Commentary | Tags: des moines city council, downtown, drinking, food cart laws, manners, pizza
While you are enjoying the holiday season and preparing the list of things you will most likely not be accomplishing next year (aka resolutions), many others are looking toward the future with you. This year we shall be looking toward a future with at least one less late night dining option, thanks to the Des Moines City Council.
The New Enemy Of The State
I spoke with sources close to the owner of the food cart which formerly took residence in the parking lot across from the Royal Mile on 4th street in down town DMZ. It seems that due to the new “crackdown” on the troublesome food vendor sector that this food cart will never return to operation. No, it wasn’t shut down by the city. It was a decision by the the owner/operator, who is fed up with the treatment that has been doled out upon the food cart dining scene.
That’s right, the Des Moines City Council has made moves that have caused at least one business owner to shut down operations. Reasons cited by the cart owner include increasingly rising licensing fees, the new hour restriction which takes away the busiest 90 minutes of the service evening, and some new “hoop jumping” put in place by the new laws. Evidently the 1:30 am law isn’t the time you stop serving, but you have to be packed up and out of the area by that time.
I am sickened by this whole situation. Drunks can’t get a taco or a grill cheese on the streets, but they can get a sloppy beef sandwich or slice pizza then drunkenly spill back out onto the streets to cause the same problems cited by the city in their complaint about the street vendors. Bullshit. First the Taco Trucks, now the food carts.
What about the people who get done at work late, bike commute, and find it more convenient to ride up to a food cart, eat without dismounting, then continue on to the next destination? What about the income lost by the food cart owners who have invested time and money in their venture hoping to one day have a “brick and mortar” spot? What about the tax revenue lost by the city due to their treatment of small business owners?
What’s next? No more drive through food after 1?
The Cook
5 Comments so far
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Locally Grown 
Gahhh..what a crock of shit. I was really enjoying the little toch of big-city that the cart added down there.
Damnit DSM!
(Shaking angry fist)
Comment by InthewaterDSM 2010/12/30 @ 8:49 amWhat he said!
Comment by Pesky 2010/12/30 @ 9:22 amWhat??? Food carts are awesome! What’s wrong with DSM??????
Comment by Ruth 2010/12/30 @ 8:55 amUntil people actually voice their opinions to the city council and lawmakers, none of this matters. We can be as pissed off as we want to be, but nothing will change.
Comment by aasukisuki 2010/12/30 @ 2:22 pm[…] cantankerousness has a Youth Champion, Samuel Auen is it. He’s a vegetarian chef, food cart workers rights advocate and self described Taco Enthusiast and writes a frequently updated local food news and […]
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