FORT SMITH -- Mobile food vendors banished from operating in downtown Fort Smith 22 years ago will get a reprieve if officials amend the city's outdoor food vending ordinance, which is under discussion.
The Fort Smith Planning Commission took its first look last week at a proposed ordinance that would allow food trucks, food trailers and sidewalk vendors to set up and operate downtown on private property, sidewalks and, to a limited extent, on public roadsides.
City development director Wally Bailey said the commission could vote on the ordinance change at its April 14 meeting unless the proposal needs more work. If approved at that meeting, the proposed ordinance would go before the Fort Smith Board of Directors next month.
Mobile food vending is allowed in most commercial and light industrial zones, but not in residential areas. Complaints voiced by the then-Downtown Merchants Association against some mobile food vendors in downtown in 1993 led to the businesses being banned from operating downtown, Bailey said.
The proposed ordinance would add the downtown commercial zone, C-6, to the areas where mobile food vendors would be allowed to operate. The length of the permit terms would increase from 120 days to a year, and the permit fee would decrease from $250 to $150. Also, vendors would not be required to relocate when they renew their permits, as they are now.
Late last year, the city's planning department staff members began considering reviewing and possibly removing the ban, but that grew into a general review of mobile vendor regulations throughout Fort Smith, Bailey said. Some Fort Smith city directors also began talking about allowing the vendors downtown.
The Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee, which completed an update of the city's long-range development strategy in December, also looked at allowing the mobile food vendors downtown.
"So, all this came together about the same time," Bailey said.
For the past few months, city planning staff members have been researching the matter, examining the ordinances of other cities that permit mobile food vending, and holding public meetings and talks with the various stakeholders to get their input.
Staff members also sent out surveys to downtown business owners, downtown restaurant owners and on Facebook, receiving nearly 1,000 responses.
Of the 21 downtown restaurant owners who were sent surveys, eight responded. Six of them opposed allowing mobile food vendors downtown. According to the survey, all agreed that if such vendors were allowed, they should be kept a certain distance from brick-and-mortar restaurants. All but one opposed allowing vendors to use public parking spaces.
"I serve food and don't want someone selling food close to my business," one restaurateur commented in the survey.
A majority of the downtown business owners who responded to the survey -- 53 of 69 -- favored allowing mobile food vendors downtown. Most stated that the vendors should be required to keep their distance from brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Bailey said city planning staff members met with the Central Business Improvement District board last month. He said the board members supported consideration of mobile food vendors returning downtown but wanted to be respectful of existing restaurants. They also expressed concern about allowing them to set up in the public right of way, he said.
Board Chairman Richard Griffin said he believed that board members were glad that people would want to be downtown and that vendors would consider it a place where they could make their businesses work.
Mobile food vending "is a viable opportunity for more commerce downtown," he said.
He said the board is mindful of the downtown restaurant owners' opposition and that members have listened to their comments and to those of the public.
Hari Paizis, who has run Paizis' Gyros in Fort Smith out of a mobile food trailer for the past 10 years, said allowing in additional cuisine would draw people downtown. He said mobile food vendors would complement rather than compete with fixed restaurants.
"It's just going to bring more people downtown that will try my food one day; the next day they will try somebody else's," Paizis said.
Of the 961 people who responded to the city's survey last month on Facebook, 908 said they would like to see more mobile food vendors in Fort Smith, and 913 said they would visit a mobile food court. A mobile food court is a group of mobile food vendors at one location.
In preparing the mobile food vending ordinance proposal, city staff members studied the applicable ordinances in Little Rock; Fayetteville; Bentonville; Tulsa; Lee's Summit, Mo.; and College Station, Texas.
Planner Brenda Andrews said Lee's Summit, population 93,184, and College Station, 100,050, were chosen because the planning commissioners wanted comparisons with cities of Fort Smith's size, population 87,650.
Last June, the Little Rock Board of Directors passed an ordinance expanding the zoning districts in the city that permit mobile food vendors -- called mobile canteen units in Little Rock -- from three districts to 11, including the downtown district, city planner Dana Carney said.
The ordinance also codified the regulations governing the mobile canteen units, he said.
In the Little Rock ordinance's introduction, the directors noted that mobile food trucks have become more popular around the country and in Little Rock.
The trucks provide a variety of meal options and foods from diverse cultural backgrounds in all areas of the city. And they provide entrepreneurial opportunities for operators of small businesses and operators who are members of minority groups, the ordinance stated.
Mobile food vending can give unemployed people or people with little seed money the opportunity to start their own businesses, Fayetteville planning director Andrew Garner said. He said it can be a good solution for people who have found trouble finding work in tough economic times.
Mobile food vending can also be a business incubator, helping a small business to expand into a permanent restaurant building, like Southern Gourmasian has in downtown Little Rock.
That's also happening in Fort Smith for Paizis, who is getting ready to open a Paizis' Gyros restaurant in the Quarry Shopping Center where he has set up his mobile unit.
He said the opportunity presented itself for him to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant when the previous tenant moved out.
Also, "I have a great customer base developed by being in Fort Smith for 10 years," he said.
He said he will continue to operate his food trailer but will move it to another location -- maybe the east side of the city, Van Buren or downtown Fort Smith, if the directors allow in mobile food vendors.
NW News on 04/06/2015