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Sidney’ s Frozen Custard owner Bruce Block appeared before the Grand Marais City Council during the Public Comment period and asked the council to deny requests to set up food trucks on city owned property.
Block said he has had the pleasure of eating at food trucks sitting on private lots but doesn’t want the city to make a policy allowing food truck owners to lease city owned land. He said he has been in business for 20 years and employs about 18 people when he is open for the tourist season. He added he pays taxes year-round and said if he knew he could have the opportunity to run a food truck on Artist Point “I don’t know if I would have built. Instead, I might have just run a food truck.”
When it came time to discuss whether the city wanted to set a policy for food trucks—or other types of vendors— to lease land on city property, council Tracy Benson asked, “Do we want to do this?”
The subject had come up at the council’s previous meeting when one food truck vendor said she was having trouble finding an affordable spot to run her food truck on private land, so she asked the city to think about passing an ordinance allowing food trucks to be on some city land.
Council asked city attorney Chris Hood to see if he could find a policy used by another city that could be changed to reflect Grand Marais. Hood said Winona had such a policy and he sent a copy to city councilors with some changes to reflect the cities interests.
Benson said while she saw a need for more restaurants in the city, she questioned whether the city should open public land for private enterprises.
Council Anton Moody agreed with Benson. He also thought it seemed like a lot of extra work for the city staff to set up and run this type of program.
Councilor Craig Schulte responded, “I agree with Anton and Tracy.” He explained that for the city to get involved with this question, it was putting the city in the position of trying to solve a peak need for restaurants to feed the public. “I’m not sure that’s our job to get into that. At this point in time, where are we going with this? I just think we are dealing with peaks and valleys for use of restaurants in our community and this is where it is. I don’t know if more food trucks will ease the problem. I agree with Tracy and Anton, at this time I don’t think we should do this.”
Mayor Jay Decoux disagreed, saying he thought it was the council’s job to manage public space. He thought food trucks would “give us a little more variety for food. I don’t think that’s a bad thing and I think there is more than enough business to go around.”
Benson countered, “This is never about competition or variety of food. We are not here to tamp down on competition or create competition… “I’m not sure we will ever solve our parking problem, but we don’t want to aggravate the public parking.” She said she also heard from a restaurant owner that they wouldn’t want their customers view blocked by a food truck. “Why would I continue to run my brick-and-mortar store if I could operate a food truck?” She asked.
City Administrator Mike Roth told the council they could look over the document the city attorney had sent them in the next month or two, and if they felt the need to discuss the subject further, they could. Or they could drop it. With that the subject ended. At least for this point in time.
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