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Pittsburgh is a proud thriving city of sports champions, universities, medical centers,
and the arts
with the delicious local culinary scene, that's being further enriched by food
trucks.
Meet three of these mobile entrepreneurs.
I'm Lynne Szarnicki, I own the Pittsburgh Pierogi Truck,
and we sell pierogis, stuffed cabbage and haluski.
I'm Tim Tobitsch from
Franktuary,
and this is the Franktuary food truck.
My name's Brian Pekarcik, I'm the owner of BRGR Spoon.
We've just recently opened a food truck within the last few weeks.
Customers love the food and experience Pittsburgh's food trucks have to offer.
I really love that it's fast, affordable, and really convenient.
I have costumers literally jumping up andd down for joy
because they love pierogis so much as they are so excited to eat our food.
Food trucks are a great way for a small company to start
out in the big world.
They let people get their foot in the door.
I really appreciate the mobile food truck scene
because it takes
an inactive space and it activates it. It's a popup community
gathering spot.
Franktuary has local beef. They get their
food from local farms and it's a local business that
supports local people.
But, Pittsburgh's laws make it nearly impossible for food trucks to survive,
let alone thrive.
Pittsburgh laws, they're really restricted in allowing food trucks to be
successful.
We have a rule in place in the city of Pittsburgh right now that
prohibits us from being within five hundred feet
a brick and mortar business that sells a similar product. The restrictions are
kind of harsh. Especially the thirty minute time limit
by the time we set up,
like half of that time's gone,
so we only have fifteen minutes to sell to people.
That's not really
practical at all. It's such a bummer sometimes when you hear a food truck's somewhere
and then you make your way out there on your lunch break and then it had to
leave because there's regulations
against how long they can stay in one spot. The metered spaces,
that's hard because
a lot of the spaces in Pittsburgh are metered. It pretty much takes out all of downtown.
They seem to be designed to keep us from costumers and
obviously if you have a food truck, you need customers to earn a living.
We decided to open up a food truck because it's such a popular concept across the
country.
So we wanted to try to help bring Pittsburgh current with food trends and
so there certainly still are challenges with the thirty minute rule, and
being within five hundred feet of brick and mortar restaurants.
That proximity restriction is actually unconstitutional
because of its protectionist nature
and it makes it
next impossible to operate legally at any given moment. Fortunately city
councilman Bill Peduto has introduced legislation
that would make it easier for these food trucks to get on the road and serve eager
customers.
We are here today with a bunch of entrepreneurs.
Young people who have created a new industry within Pittsburgh, and we're
introducing legislation
to make their industry
something that could happen all throughout our city, and at the same time
create a model piece of legislation that other cities could follow.
Councilman Peduto's bill
would let food trucks operate from metered parking spaces, allow trucks to operate from one
location for up to four hours, and eliminate the five hundred foot
proximity restriction.
These reforms would make Pittsburgh one of the most food truck friendly cities
in the Nation.
What food trucks add is an added
amenity. Something that adds just a little bit more to that city experience.
At the same time, it provides people with an opportunity for a career, a business.
This is a city that values its food scene, and
values it's community, and
it's pretty apparent that
the community wants food trucks and we're thrilled to be a part of it.
I would like to see the laws really losen up, and allow food trucks to
be sucessful. I don't understand how the city can have laws in place
that prevent us from competing. We need people to really be hungry for change,
and they can do that by going to the website,
calling their city council person, telling their friends
about the petition
and generally helping us spread the word that Pittsburgh is right on the cusp of change for mobile food, and we want to see those things go through for a more
vibrant, exciting food community in Pittsburgh.