Thread: Taco trucks get the runaround - RALEIGH

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/470775.html





Published: Aug 14, 2006 12:30 AM
Modified: Aug 14, 2006 05:29 AM


Taco trucks get the runaround
Culture clash arises as Raleigh rules cramp Latino eateries

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Ryan Teague Beckwith, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - Roberto Portillo would like to sell more tacos, but he needs something that is increasingly hard to find in Raleigh:
A parking spot.

Under city regulations, lunch trucks like Portillo's Taqueria Guerrero are severely limited on where they can set up shop.

Like other North Carolina cities, Raleigh prohibits trucks from selling food on city streets and in residential neighborhoods. But it also outlaws sales for more than a short period of time at any commercial site smaller than a major shopping center.

Portillo says the rules have made it hard to find a good spot.

"A business needs to be seen by people," he said, after finishing a shift at a flea market parking lot on Capital Boulevard on a recent Saturday. "If they don't want us in an area where people can see us, it's going to be hard to make a business."

The rules have led to something of a culture clash between City Hall and the Hispanic business owners who run the lunch trucks, known as loncheras.

Long popular in Latin America and in U.S. cities in the Southwest, loncheras are essentially tiny, mobile restaurants that serve tacos made with corn tortillas and other authentic Mexican and Latin American dishes.

With Wake County's Hispanic population more than doubling over the past five years to around 70,000, loncheras have become a profitable niche business.

At least three dozen lunch trucks that specialize in Mexican food are operating in Wake, according to county restaurant permits. Most hopscotch among construction sites on weekdays.

But a few have expanded to serve the crowds outside nightclubs popular among Hispanics and weekend crowds at soccer games, among other places.

That has led to clashes with police and zoning inspectors. As a result, some lonchera owners say they feel like the city is harassing them. City administrators say they're just responding to calls from upset residents.

"We get complaints from citizens about these places setting up and causing traffic problems and trash and things of that nature," said Larry Strickland, the city's inspections director.

The crackdown begins

Waverly Smith is one such resident. The retired engineer, who lives in North Raleigh, said he was bothered by trucks serving food on Atlantic Avenue late at night. He thinks the trucks are unsanitary and lead to crowds of people hanging out after hours.

"If they're going to run a taco place, they could easily go rent a storefront," he said.

Smith, who is a member of the Northeast Raleigh Citizens Advisory Council, complained to the Raleigh police and the planning department, which regulates where food trucks can operate. Last year, they began a crackdown on loncheras.

Inspectors used a city code that restricts mobile food vendors from selling at a given spot for more than 20 days in a year.

In March 2005, they cited Victor Campos, owner of a Latino grocery store in North Raleigh. The year before, he bought a $100,000 truck in California, got a business license and a restaurant permit and began selling tacos from the parking lot, according to his testimony to the city's Board of Adjustment.

Campos later said he did not realize that the city restricted where he could park.

Ticketing branches out

When he received the citation, Campos complained that his business was being unfairly singled out. He argued that the hot dog stands that run year-round in front of home improvement stores Lowe's and Home Depot were also in violation.

Inspectors then ticketed the hot dog stands, which are owned by Specialty South Food Services. The company hired Raleigh attorney Dave Permar, who also represented Campos, to lobby the city to relax the rules.

It did -- in a way that allowed the hot dog stands, but not the loncheras.

The new rules allow mobile food stands at a site year-round if they are less than 10 feet long, within 25 feet of a building, closed by 11 p.m., and on a property that is at least 2 1/2 acres -- enough to accommodate Lowe's and other big-box retailers.

Loncheras typically do not meet any of those requirements.

Irene Gonzalez is secretary of the board of the N.C. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which often advises lonchera owners on permits. She said the city should hold all of the mobile food vendors to the same standard.

"I really don't think there should be a difference between a hot dog stand and a lonchera," she said.

Other North Carolina cities limit the length of time a vendor can sell at a location but do not have the same restrictions on the size of the property. In Charlotte, vendors can sell from the same location for 90 consecutive days. In Greensboro, the limit is 30 days in a row.

Both cities require sales to be from commercial properties, but neither has restrictions on the size of the lot as Raleigh does.

Some owners give up

The new restrictions effectively put Campos out of business. He hired another lawyer to fight the city's decision in Superior Court but dropped the case in late July. Campos said he didn't want to start a political battle.

"You can't fight the city," he said. "That's why I closed it down and shut my mouth."

The city's regulations also caused Alberto Herrera to shut down a lonchera he ran for three years. He said he didn't have any problems serving food on construction sites -- which don't meet the city's standards either -- but the city wouldn't allow him to sell food at other locations.

"I don't know exactly what the city wanted," he said.

The size restriction did not affect Roberto Portillo's existing business, but it has hurt his plans for expansion. The Raleigh Flea Market Mall, a former shopping center, has more than 10 acres. But Portillo says that it's hard to find other places to do business.

When he tried to sell tacos from a print shop near Atlantic Avenue, he said a man claiming to be a city inspector threatened to arrest his workers. (City staff say they do not think the man, who would not show the workers ID, was actually an inspector.)

"What is the crime?" Portillo asked. "We are selling food. We are not selling drugs. We are just trying to make a business."

Staff writer Ryan Teague Beckwith can be reached at 836-4944 or rbeckwit@newsobserver.com.
© Copyright 2006, The News & Observer Publishing Company
A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company

"You can't fight the city," he said. "That's why I closed it down and shut my mouth."

Truth be known, you're probably an illegal immigrant - that is why you shut down your stand and shut your mouth. !

Long popular in Latin America and in U.S. cities in the Southwest, loncheras are essentially tiny, mobile restaurants that serve tacos made with corn tortillas and other authentic Mexican and Latin American dishes.

With Wake County's Hispanic population more than doubling over the past five years to around 70,000, loncheras have become a profitable niche business.

Come on... They are making it sound like there is no where to get Mexican food. I just looked at the Yellow Pages and there are over a dozen Taco Bells listed. There are probably several dozen more Mexican restaraunts and almost every grocery store I go into now has a aisle especially for Mexican themed foods.

Do we really need mobile taco stands?

Do we really need mobile taco stands?
_________________

No......I'm sick enough of seeing Mexican restaurants and sick of seeing every other restaurant bringing Mexican food in. Not all of us have a stomach or a taste for their food. Besides from an article I just read in an Orlando newspaper......it's not very healthy either. One of the reasons they have diabetes more than whites, blacks and just about everybody else.

Somebody really needs to sit down with these people and make them realize you CAN"T JUST DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO MAKE MONEY OR START A BUSINESS ETC. We have laws and restrictions!!!! For safety and health reasons!!!! Can't wait till one of these bozo's gets their butt sued for foodpoising or transmission of some disease. Yoo-hoo.....you ain't in Mexico anymore!!!!!

Originally Posted by JohnB2012

Long popular in Latin America and in U.S. cities in the Southwest, loncheras are essentially tiny, mobile restaurants that serve tacos made with corn tortillas and other authentic Mexican and Latin American dishes.

With Wake County's Hispanic population more than doubling over the past five years to around 70,000, loncheras have become a profitable niche business.

Come on... They are making it sound like there is no where to get Mexican food. I just looked at the Yellow Pages and there are over a dozen Taco Bells listed. There are probably several dozen more Mexican restaraunts and almost every grocery store I go into now has a aisle especially for Mexican themed foods.

Do we really need mobile taco stands?

taco bell is not mexican food.

here in Los Angeles the taco trucks and wagons are part of the cities culture.

at the end of the workday nothing beats sitting on your car hood with a plate of tacos and an ice cold beverage with the sun at your back.

We have those portable food stands here as well, tomaine on wheels we call them. They do not adhere to the same standards that restaurants do. I never buy anything from them.

taco bell is not mexican food

http://www.tacobell.com/

Taco Bell Corp., (Taco Bell) based in Irvine, California, is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM), and the nation’s leading Mexican-style quick service restaurant chain. Taco Bell® serves tacos, burritos, signature Quesadillas, Grilled Stuft Burritos, nachos, and other specialty items such as the Crunchwrap Supreme™, in addition to a wide variety of Big Bell Value Menu® items. Taco Bell® serves more than 2 billion consumers each year in more than 5,800 restaurants in the U.S. In 2005, Taco Bell® generated sales of $1.8 billion in company restaurants and $4.4 billion in franchise restaurants. More than 80 percent of our restaurants are owned and operated by independent franchisees. There are currently more than 278 restaurants operating in Canada, Guam, Aruba, Dominican Republic, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Asia, Europe, and the Philippines.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/ ... istory.htm

Taco History

In Mexico, the word taco is a generic term like the English word sandwich. A taco is simply a tortilla wrapped around a filling. Like a sandwich, the filling can be made with almost anything and prepared in many different ways (anything that can be rolled inside a tortilla becomes a taco). The contents of a taco can vary according to the geographical region you are eating them. The taco can be eaten as an entree or snack. They are made with soft corn or fried corn tortillas folded over.

1520 -Bernal Diaz del Castillo (1496-1584), a Spanish soldier who came with Hernán Cortés to the New World, wrote an intriguing and detailed chronicles called A True History of the Conquest of New Spain. He also chronicled the lavish feasts that were held. From the article by Sophie Avernin called Tackling the taco: A guide to the art of taco eating:

The first “taco bash” in the history of New Spain was documented by none other than Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Hernan Cortes organized this memorable banquet in Coyoacan for his captains, with pigs brought all the way from Cuba. It would, however, be a mistake to think that Cortes invented the taco, since anthropologists have discovered evidence that inhabitants of the lake region of the Valley of Mexico ate tacos filled with small fish, such as acosiles and charales. The fish were replaced by small live insects and ants in the states of Morelos and Guerrero, while locusts and snails were favorite fillings in Puebla and Oaxaca.

Taco's sound like they are pretty Mexican to me. Not sure if I would want to eat the ones with bugs and snails though...

here in Los Angeles the taco trucks and wagons are part of the cities culture.

And you can keep them.

at the end of the workday nothing beats sitting on your car hood with a plate of tacos and an ice cold beverage with the sun at your back

I prefer to make my own and eat them in my air conditioned house.

I don't like the idea of mobile food stands and here is why. What about health regulations? How does the health inspector know where they are. That is why they are limited to where they can park.

We have the same problem in dallas with these hand pushed ice cream carts. NONE of them are licensed by the city or the state health boards... Illegals, selling illegal and possibly deadly foods.

Also many of the lunch trucks down here try to assertain the 'bathtub' cheese from their kinsmen in Mexico to use on their tacos making the food very unhealthy and violating FDA, State and Local regs. The problem is no one ever checks to see where the cheese is coming from until someone gets sick.

Originally Posted by JohnB2012

taco bell is not mexican food

http://www.tacobell.com/

[quote:1weelagt]Taco Bell Corp., (Taco Bell) based in Irvine, California, is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM), and the nation’s leading Mexican-style quick service restaurant chain. Taco Bell® serves tacos, burritos, signature Quesadillas, Grilled Stuft Burritos, nachos, and other specialty items such as the Crunchwrap Supreme™, in addition to a wide variety of Big Bell Value Menu® items. Taco Bell® serves more than 2 billion consumers each year in more than 5,800 restaurants in the U.S. In 2005, Taco Bell® generated sales of $1.8 billion in company restaurants and $4.4 billion in franchise restaurants. More than 80 percent of our restaurants are owned and operated by independent franchisees. There are currently more than 278 restaurants operating in Canada, Guam, Aruba, Dominican Republic, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Asia, Europe, and the Philippines.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/ ... istory.htm

Taco History

In Mexico, the word taco is a generic term like the English word sandwich. A taco is simply a tortilla wrapped around a filling. Like a sandwich, the filling can be made with almost anything and prepared in many different ways (anything that can be rolled inside a tortilla becomes a taco). The contents of a taco can vary according to the geographical region you are eating them. The taco can be eaten as an entree or snack. They are made with soft corn or fried corn tortillas folded over.

1520 -Bernal Diaz del Castillo (1496-1584), a Spanish soldier who came with Hernán Cortés to the New World, wrote an intriguing and detailed chronicles called A True History of the Conquest of New Spain. He also chronicled the lavish feasts that were held. From the article by Sophie Avernin called Tackling the taco: A guide to the art of taco eating:

The first “taco bash” in the history of New Spain was documented by none other than Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Hernan Cortes organized this memorable banquet in Coyoacan for his captains, with pigs brought all the way from Cuba. It would, however, be a mistake to think that Cortes invented the taco, since anthropologists have discovered evidence that inhabitants of the lake region of the Valley of Mexico ate tacos filled with small fish, such as acosiles and charales. The fish were replaced by small live insects and ants in the states of Morelos and Guerrero, while locusts and snails were favorite fillings in Puebla and Oaxaca.

Taco's sound like they are pretty Mexican to me. Not sure if I would want to eat the ones with bugs and snails though...

here in Los Angeles the taco trucks and wagons are part of the cities culture.

And you can keep them.

at the end of the workday nothing beats sitting on your car hood with a plate of tacos and an ice cold beverage with the sun at your back

I prefer to make my own and eat them in my air conditioned house. [/quote:1weelagt]

actually the equivalent to a sandwhich in mexico is a torta not a taco.

I should have said that Taco Bell isn't real mexican food. The taco's at taco bell are americanized mexican food. It's certainly not a substitute for an authentic taco.

Originally Posted by dragons5

I don't like the idea of mobile food stands and here is why. What about health regulations? How does the health inspector know where they are. That is why they are limited to where they can park.

We have the same problem in dallas with these hand pushed ice cream carts. NONE of them are licensed by the city or the state health boards... Illegals, selling illegal and possibly deadly foods.

Also many of the lunch trucks down here try to assertain the 'bathtub' cheese from their kinsmen in Mexico to use on their tacos making the food very unhealthy and violating FDA, State and Local regs. The problem is no one ever checks to see where the cheese is coming from until someone gets sick.

While there are some outlaw taco carts your average taco truck is probably fresher and safer to eat at than your average resteraunt. The reason for this is they are required to purchase their food daily and they are required to park in commissaries overnight.
http://www.polarinertia.com/jan06/taco03.htm

ice cream carts with possibly deadly foods? give me a break