With virtually no input from food truck vendors, the Honolulu City Council has amended and passed a measure that would bar any food trucks without the proper permits from selling food during lunchtime hours in the area around the state Capitol and City Hall.
That measure, Bill 1, originally would have just allowed food trucks to bid on special spaces to serve lunch customers in what’s described as the "Hawaii Capitol special district." The area includes the state Capitol and Honolulu Hale, a small part of downtown and stretches south to the waterfront.
However, last month the bill was changed to further prohibit any trucks without those permitted spaces from operating in the district from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The bill, introduced by Council Chairman Ernie Martin, was approved 7-2 despite an absence of testimony from the mobile vendors. It now goes to Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s desk. If Caldwell signs it into law, it will create a two-year pilot program that city officials could eventually use as a model to regulate lunch trucks across Oahu if they deem it successful.
Some food truck operators this week were critical of the proposed two-year pilot program, saying it’s not properly thought out and could drive the food trucks that don’t get the necessary permits out of business.
"It’s going to be interesting, because I think a lot of trucks are going to be put out of business. There are only so many places you can go," said Harris Sukita, co-owner of Simply Ono. The company’s three food trucks operate in town and in Kaneohe. "They’re trying to control business. … Once they start getting involved, then you’re not letting business do their thing. You want the best out there, and you don’t get the best controlling who comes in."
Ron Pelagio, who regularly buys his lunch from one of the five or so trucks that regularly park on Mililani Street not far from Iolani Palace, said he hoped the measure would not affect the lunch variety or the trucks’ prices. Even "five trucks get old pretty quick," Pelagio said Thursday.
Martin did not return a request for comment this week regarding the bill and the reasons behind it.
Before Wednesday’s final vote, Martin urged colleagues to support the measure. Food trucks vendors, he said, "recommended that exclusive zones be set up" two years ago when the Council approved a separate food truck bill. That bill, introduced by then-Councilwoman Tulsi Gabbard and signed into law by former Mayor Peter Carlisle, allowed food truck vendors to park for extended periods at city parking meters.
It would fall to Department of Transportation Services Director Mike Formby to determine how many spaces to set up and where they should be. On Friday, Formby said that the city would aim to be "responsive to the industry" and its needs while seeking designated food truck areas that don’t deprive public parking spaces. It’s not clear yet how many lunchtime spaces would be created for the trucks in the district. Formby said the program would likely include a $400 minimum bid for a monthly space, and he added that truck owners would have the chance to weigh in with their concerns during DTS’ rule-making for the program.
Nonetheless, Breene Harimoto, chairman of the Council’s Transportation Committee and one of its two dissenting votes on the measure, said Thursday "it’s unconscionable that we would pass a bill targeted at this one industry and not solicit any input from them. And on that basis I voted ‘no.’"
Gerald Saito, director of the city Department of Enterprise Services, said he recalled the bill’s purpose being to "help legitimate trucks to park in legitimate stalls and not having to camp out from morning" for one. The program would also generate revenue for the city, Saito added.
At Wednesday’s Council meeting, where Harimoto dissented, he wondered why the program was necessary. "Right now, as far as I can tell, it seems to work in the Capitol district. Food trucks come and they park, and then they do their business, and then they’re gone," he said.
Other vendors said that if the regulation is signed into law and they’re unable to get permits to serve food from their trucks on the streets around the state Capitol building, Iolani Palace, Honolulu Hale and other government facilities, they’ll have no choice but to operate somewhere else.
"We would probably end up going to Kakaako," Adrian Cook, of the All Kine Grindz food truck, said Thursday while serving customers on Mililani Street. "Our business has been real good here."
