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* Sun-Times…
Food-truck operators in Chicago — facing a crackdown by City Hall on a business that’s found big support among the young and hip — are getting backing from groups financed by staunch conservatives including the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers and Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Lawyers from the Institute for Justice, based in Arlington, Va., are pressing a long-running lawsuit to overturn the city’s rules, which bar food trucks from doing business within 200 feet of restaurants.
The Institute for Justice says it got “initial seed funding” from Charles G. Koch of Wichita, Kansas, and recognizes the “generous” financial support of David H. Koch, who lives in New York. The octogenarian brothers control Koch Industries, the country’s second-biggest privately held company, and are among the largest financiers of Republican politicians and right-wing causes nationally.
Another conservative organization, the Illinois Policy Institute, which ramped up its campaign on behalf of Chicago’s food trucks in recent weeks, has received funding from the Charles Koch Institute and Rauner’s family foundation, according to publicly available tax returns those groups have filed with the Internal Revenue Service as not-for-profit organizations.
I’ve written about this before, but let me say it again: The city’s overly complicated food truck regulations are just plain ridiculous.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 8:54 am
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Agreed 100%.
Comment by Bobby Catalpa Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 8:59 am
The restaurant association got upset because their members have leases/rent and have other location-based costs and then a food truck pulls up and parks on the front curb and takes away customers without having to absorb the same costs so they pushed for a bunch of new regulations. The restaurant association is an organized lobbying group, the food trucks aren’t organized as well so here we are.
Comment by The Captain Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 9:06 am
Yep. There are hardly any locations in the Loop not within 200 feet of a brick and mortar restaurant. And having patronized a few of the trucks, they do a better job than a lot of their restaurant competition.
Comment by Ron Burgundy Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 9:06 am
Food trucks need to organize, raise funds, and hire top notch lobbyists to compete with the restaurants. Seed money from the Kochs should help get this process going.
Comment by Tron Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 9:15 am
The rules are too complicated, but the brick and mortar restaurants have good points, too. They invested money, obtained a mortgage based in part on the known competition. Allowing competition to drive up and plant themselves right outside their door without following ANY rules just doesn’t seem right.
Comment by Michael Westen Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 9:26 am
Chicago has a lot of overly complicated regulations stifling businesses, it’s why so many entrepreneurial (people who create jobs) leave the City and the State to start businesses elsewhere.
The best story IPI ever did was the young lady who moved to Austin Texas to start a business because she couldn’t do it in Illinois. For those who might have a Texas comment, Austin is not a hot bed of conservatives.
Comment by Ahoy! Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 9:35 am
Regulate for food safety.
Regulate locations for the safety of the public.
Give the brick and mortar guys a buffer.
Then get out of the way. If someone wants to be in a location 2 hrs a day, or 10, thats up to them.
Comment by Langhorne Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 9:47 am
They make perfect sense if you are trying to limit competition.
Comment by Steve Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 9:56 am
The only time government should mess in the markets is to protect the best interests of the general public. Now the “best interests” and the “general public” mean different things to different people, but I think most folks agree that insulating restaurant profits from normal market pressures at the expense of food truck profits doesn’t fall into that category.
Now if you want to add a higher licensing fee for food trucks to recoup the loss of property tax revenue from brick and mortar restaurants, then fine. But buffer zones from natural competition are just goofy.
Comment by Chicago_Downstater Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 9:57 am
It’s a fight among businesses, not a liberal/conservative thing.
Park a food truck in front of the restaurant of a “staunch conservative” paying Loop rent and watch their no-regulations, free-market principles disappear.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 10:03 am
“They invested money, obtained a mortgage based in part on the known competition. Allowing competition to drive up and plant themselves right outside their door without following ANY rules just doesn’t seem right. ”
thats called business. I mean an existing software company leases a building, sells to consumers or other businesses, gets long term debt… Then some PUNK startup in a basement makes a better product, for cheaper and sells it via the Apple store. Someone should regulate that?
Or a automobile Window shop has a garage, signs, lease, employees, then some startup guy in a van offers a service where he will come to your house and repair your broken/chipped windshield for cheaper. Well thats just not fair.
That is business. If consumers choose to use a food truck, then a restaurant may go out of business and that land/store space will be available to someone else.
as mentioned above, regulate for SAFETY not to limit competition.
Comment by Ron O - now in Texas Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 10:04 am
Agreed. Might be Government Overreach. I support Freedom and Liberty, as long as it doesnt affect the health and well-being of others. For instance, driving while distracted/intoxicated.
Comment by Dan O'Halloran Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 10:18 am
Similar to Uber vs Big Taxi. However, I just don’t see food trucks putting the restaurant industry out of business.
Comment by BK Brah Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 10:35 am
–Similar to Uber vs Big Taxi.–
Big Taxi didn’t have a leg to stand on because they had redlined vast stretches of the city.
I think restaurant owners on the South and West sides would have the same complaints as those in the Loop and River North about food trucks parking in front of their businesses.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 11:06 am
The food trucks were wrong to blatantly blow-off the law - they were taking up prime parking space HOURS before they started serving food (I mean the lunch ones parked on Wacker and Clark starting at 6AM). But the regulations should be changed to designate those and maybe some other stretches and then giving them more than 2 hours.
I’m curious just how many of these food trucks are “David” and how many are “Goliath” - I’ve noticed a bunch at those aforementioned locations have the same River North address painted on them.
Comment by lake county democrat Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 11:34 am
Chicago has far too many restaurants now, they go under on a regular basis. Here is an example from the Andersonville community on the north side where I live. Cantina 1910 at 5025 N Clark St spent big bucks on a full gut rehab of a former restaurant and went under within only one year.
Michael Roper, owner of Andersonville Hopleaf, (a great beer selection by the way) shared his views via Facebook. He called the build-out at Cantina 1910 one of the most “extravagant” the neighborhood’s ever seen. He’s worried the space will remain vacant for a while because it will be difficult to find a tenant to occupy a space that large and unique. “While they may have had other issues that may have doomed them, the fact is that our neighborhood and Chicago at large is ‘over-restauranted,’” Roper wrote. “The population of Chicago is not growing. People who live here are not making more money. People can only eat out so often. However, we are in the midst of a restaurant and bar opening binge.”
The food trucks will be going under too rapidly as they proliferate in Chicago.
Comment by Rod Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 11:37 am
It’s not unusual for a poorly run restaurant to go under in less than a year. It’s not unusual for a well-run one to close after three years. It’s the nature of the business.
Comment by Cheryl44 Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 11:51 am
Ron O Your example is flawed and not relevant. In your example, the new folks should be required to follow any regulations that already exist, not given a free reign because they are “new.” The food industry is already heavily regulated, the industry in your example is not. To allow competition to skirt the regulations you’ve been following for years isn’t right.
Comment by Michael Westen Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 11:59 am
Smart brick and mortar restaurateurs will get a food truck or two of their own in a sort of “if you can’t beat’em, join’em” solution. Those food trucks could make a few of the signature items on the restaurant’s menu, and draw new customers in from all over the city. The law is stupid, and should be rescinded. As for the Kochs being right… so’s a broken clock twice a day.
Comment by PublicServant Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 12:59 pm
Food trucks are bad. Low quality food, not fresh, often causing indigestion.
I now avoid them like the plague, because that is what you get.
It would be bad if they made regular restaurants few and far between. Other example of the dumbing down of America.
Comment by Andre Viande Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 1:56 pm
Cherryyl44 you are right that an astonishing 60% of restaurants in the USA go out of business within three years of opening, largely due to fundamental flaws in the planning of the operation. Researchers at Cornell University have however, found an area’s competitive environment can have a huge impact on a restaurant’s success or failure, particularly if the owner is unable to differentiate the establishment from the competition, particularly where the restaurant population is dense.
Lakeview, the gold coast areas, river north, Wicker Park / Bucktown up to my community of Andersonville are simply packed with restaurants and bars. Because this is where the disposable income is to afford eating and drinking out. This also where the food trucks want to be for the same reason. Opening this up even more creates even more bankruptcies and failures.
You are not going to see to many food trucks popping up in East St Louis or on Chicago’s West Side or likely in Decatur for that matter. You might get a rare entrepreneur that would give those lower wealth areas a shot but not many.
Comment by Rod Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 2:03 pm
If my wife and I are heading to a specific restaurant, we’re not going to see a food truck on the street and say “ah forget it.” The reverse is also untrue. Vancouver has food trucks all over the place and their restaurants do just fine. Time to evolve Chicago…I’m just bummed the Koch brothers get to score points and be on the right side of this.
Comment by Veil of Ignorance Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 5:30 pm
Rich wrote: “I’ve written about this before, but let me say it again: The city’s overly complicated food truck regulations are just plain ridiculous.”
And the same can be said of the state’s medical marijuana rules.
Comment by striketoo Monday, Sep 19, 16 @ 5:57 pm