The SF Examiner reports that, in an effort to raise revenue, the Recreation and Parks Department is considering issuing permits to local restaurants who want to sell food in the city’s parks. Tragically, the food with be expensive and probably not help you cure you drug-induced Dolores Park munchies:
“Each vendor would have to pay the department a minimum of $1,000 per month, and there would likely be provisions in the contract that healthy food is served.”
The Crème Brûlée also weighed in:
The Crème Brûlée Guy, a local food vendor who operates outside city regulations and declined to give his name, said it’s admirable that the department is trying to encourage more street vending, but the $1,000 monthly cost is “pretty steep.”
“It would be hard for an independent vendor to make that monthly payment,” said the Crème Brûlée Guy, who has operated in Dolores Park in the Mission district, adding that he intends to investigate purchasing a permit. “It would be a lot easier for a restaurant owner to just send out an employee to sit there for eight hours.”
(link)
Um, maybe $1000 a year. Or $1000 period. Make them like taxi medallions. (Hmm, that might not end up well…)
I wouldn’t be surprised if the GGRA (Golden Gate Restaurant Association) is behind this. The permit is too expensive for actual street cart vendors, but turns public parks into outdoor seating for restaurants…
This is basically extortion. Maybe $100/month to get your cart inspected for sanitation and health purposes makes sense. But it should be coming from DPH, certainly not Parks and Rec. This is just moneygrubbing bureaucracy at it’s worst. As if I were surprised…
y’all…this isn’t anything about “legitimatizing street food”, ie independent carts like brulee dude and soup girl.
it’s not anything about them at all, either good or bad.
it’s about the city raising money by allowing established businesses (with extant permits and cash flow) to expand into parks.
my guess is they didnt think about independent street carts one way or the other when they thought this up. only about “how can i make money?”.
street carts are too low level for them to think about as anything other than possible sources of illness (and therein, cost).
i don’t think GGRA has brulee dude on their radar either, but that’s just my guess.
all that said, i do love the street carts. viva the street carts. keep em underground, and keep em cheap.
actually i take that back. probably the advent of popular street carts gave them the idea in the first place.
but knowing that brulee dude and soup girl would never be able to afford it, they’re appealing to people who can.
but i doubt it’s a move against street carts specifically. more like an underground idea going main stream.
be interesting to see who buys in.
overall, it sounds lame to me and i bet few do.
What’s up with the requirement that they serve “healthy food” — Why should the City be regulating my eating habbits? Much street food, such as creme brulee, is not healthy, that is why it is delicious and gets a following. No one is going to run out to Dolores Park and line up to get carrots with hummus dip.
seriously, sf pols want to regulate EVERYTHING. behind every “progressive” veil lurks a rabid, authoritarian, inflexible, dogmatic despot.