DADE CITY — Pasco County wants to make it easier for food trucks to do business locally.
That goes for the guy selling Georgia peaches out of the back of his van, too.
The county is amending its land development code to include new rules for so-called mobile food operations. The Planning Commission endorsed the proposed ordinance last week. Pasco commissioners must vote on the measure before it becomes law.
The proposed ordinance allows food vendors to set up shop temporarily without requiring a registration or county permit. Standards for cleanliness and food safety already are controlled by the state. Under the plan approved by the planning commission, food trucks can be at one location no more than 90 days in a calendar year. Staying longer means the owner would need to obtain a permit to operate as a permanent food court.
The rules are needed because the county's code doesn't address mobile food vending. It means anybody doing it now is acting illegally unless they obtain a county permit for a special event. That is what Pasco's craft breweries have been doing to make food truck meals available to their patrons.
County attempts to regulate mobile vendors go back to the 1990s and an uproar over women in T-back bathing suits operating road-side hot dog carts. A decade later, county code enforcement officers had to write up a new group of hot dog vendors in west Pasco after complaints the vendors were operating outside county rules.
Local governments must balance the interests of property-tax-paying restaurant owners in permanent buildings versus the benefits of adding food options that stimulate pedestrian traffic to and from vendors in temporary locations.
The food truck craze that swept across the nation over the past several years helped soften any long-standing opposition.
"They're a good service, especially for special events. It's a positive thing for the community,'' said Commissioner Jack Mariano.
Denise Hernandez, Pasco zoning administrator, said representatives of local chambers of commerce, the food truck industry and the county's Food Policy Council helped draft the ordinance. The rules apply to both food trucks and mobile produce stands.
"What we wanted to prevent was someone parking a food truck and leaving it,'' said Greg Armstrong, chairman of the West Pasco Chamber of Commerce.
He pointed to a food truck parked on the north side of State Road 54 in west Pasco that "has been there so long, it's grown roots.''
Last week, Planning Commission member Michael Cox wondered about enforcement.
"Who's going to be the food truck police?'' Cox asked.
"We'll get complaints,'' Hernandez answered simultaneously with Chief Assistant County Attorney David Goldstein.
Food trucks aren't foreign to Pasco. They appear at special events like Connerton's annual Independence Day celebration and the Kumquat Festival in Dade City. They also make periodic stops at craft breweries in west Pasco, Land O' Lakes and Zephyrhills and at employment centers. Last week, food trucks were scheduled to be at the Pasco School District offices in Land O' Lakes and at the TRU Simulation complex in Lutz to serve employees.
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Explore all your optionsDisparaged decades ago as "roach coaches'' pedaling pre-made cold-cut sandwiches to starved construction crews at remote work sites, the food truck industry blossomed into the national conscious roughly nine years ago. Social media and television shows on the Food Network helped publicize the expanded offerings that can include freshly cooked seafood, Tex-Mex, Greek or Italian cuisines and other hot meals.
In Tampa, Mayor Bob Buckhorn welcomed regular food truck rallies that eventually spread to St. Petersburg and even Brooksville where four trucks appear the first Friday of each month.
Michael Blasco. chief eating officer at Tampa Bay Food Trucks, which books the mobile food vendors at locations around Tampa Bay, said he didn't believe Pasco County was ready just yet for regularly scheduled food truck rallies.
"The growth in Pasco County is tremendous,'' he said. "In Wesley Chapel, you're not lacking for things to do with the mall and all the new restaurants. It's one of those things, I think we'll get there when the density increases.''
Reach C.T. Bowen ctbowen@tampabay.com or (813) 435-7306. Follow @CTBowen2