To spice up city streets, give food vendors a break

Street food vendors are coming to Minneapolis. That's the good news. But if you were hoping to grab a falafel as you take a sunny stroll around one of the lakes, think again.

The City Council is considering an ordinance that would limit street food vendors to downtown, and is so restrictive in other ways that it will be truly surprising if anyone -- other than established Minneapolis restaurateurs looking for a downtown outpost -- invests the resources to participate, let alone to succeed. And food won't actually be sold along the streets, but rather just on sidewalks and parking lots. The city can (and should) do better.

Minneapolis officials deserve praise for introducing this idea. Minneapolis lags behind most cities when it comes to food carts and trucks. The plan is to foster some "vitality" in the downtown area, especially with the opening of Target Field. There's nothing wrong with that.

But the city's new street vendor plan should, first and foremost, be about creating opportunity. Street vending represents a way for people to reach the first rungs of the economic ladder to success. Many people start in the food business and save capital to start new businesses down the road. In all economic times, but particularly in these tough ones, governments should be doing everything they can to remove barriers and burdens to entrepreneurship.

In that light, the current proposal is too timid. It is not citywide; it does not allow food trucks on streets; it has arbitrary features, like limiting food trucks to one per private surface parking lot; it allows only current food license holders to participate; it caps the number of licenses at 25 total; and it preassigns locations to food carts rather than allowing them the flexibility to set up shop where they can be most successful.

These restrictions will likely suppress any street food renaissance before it begins. That's just what's happening in Toronto, where street food vendors keep leaving the scene because of excessive regulations that are too restrictive to allow businesses to flourish.

What's worse is that Minneapolis' proposed rules, like those in Toronto, are not at all attentive to the culture of street food, which is incredibly (pardon the pun) organic. Interest in niche and ethnic foods is on the rise, and local foodies can find out about new tastes and mobile eateries via social networking tools like Twitter, which allow food entrepreneurs to spread the word about their cuisine, as well as the locations around town where you can get it. If a food concept finds a market, it will grow and thrive and perhaps turn into a brick-and-mortar restaurant. But street vendors come and go. Thus, food carts and trucks offer a stepping stone to success for many vendors who do not have the resources to open up a restaurant and want to test their food creations in the marketplace.

Lots of potential street vendors crave the opportunity to sell their food, and lots of customers from all over the Twin Cities want to eat it. Apart from the established businesses that fear the competition, opening the city's streets to opportunity is a no-brainer.

Minneapolis could learn from cities like Portland, which has made it relatively easy to become a street food vendor. As a result, it has become a destination for people who want to sample the hundreds of foods available in the city's lively scene. Closer to home, Milwaukee has opened its streets and now has entrepreneurial crepe and pita makers who use environmentally friendly carts and trucks to sell their food. Although neither city's laws are perfect, each city has generally provided food vendors with the flexibility and freedom to be successful.

Vibrancy and vitality cannot be government-planned or government-manufactured. They are a byproduct of market forces meeting or creating demand for some good or service. And for there to be suppliers of that good or service, the city needs to create opportunities by lowering or removing the barriers to entry.

Minneapolis' proposed legislation is a step in the right direction. But the city can learn from the mistakes made in Toronto and the successes achieved in Portland and Milwaukee. Minneapolis should open its streets to vendors, not only because it's the right thing to do and will stimulate entrepreneurship, but also because it is the only way to realize the vibrant streets the city seeks.

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Jason Adkins is a staff attorney with the Institute for Justice Minnesota Chapter, which describes itself as the nation's only libertarian public interest law firm.

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