Senate Bill S7860

                                BILL NUMBER:S7860

TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the general business law, in relation to establishing
fees for mobile food vendors; and providing for the repeal of such
provisions upon the expiration thereof

PURPOSE:
This bill will place an annual cap on the amount of fees a municipality
can charge on mobile food trucks and mobile food truck vendors.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 amends section 391 of the general business law by adding a new
section S that establishes that no municipality, other than a city with
a population of one million or more, may charge a mobile food vendor an
annual fee of more than two hundred fifty dollars per mobile vending
vehicle.

Section 1 also defines mobile food vendors as any person who hawks,
peddles, sells, or offers food for sale at retail in any public space
and such food items are presented to the public in a mobile vehicle,
such as, but not limited to, a pushcart, car, van, or truck.

Additionally, Section 1 excludes any person who is solely delivering
food that has been previously ordered and purchased from an established
retail location.
              

Section 2 provides that this act shall take effect immediately and shall
sunset after two years.

JUSTIFICATION:
Food trucks are a growing industry throughout the state. This legis-
lation imposes a statewide cap of $250 on the annual fees a municipality
can charge (excluding New York City). Many local towns, villages and
cities currently impose heavily inflated fees on these small businesses,
which limits their growth potential and mobility.

Food truck licensing fees vary across the state, but often far outweigh
fees charged on brick and mortar restaurants, sometimes by hundreds of
dollars. Because they are a new and quickly growing industry, munici-
palities often develop regulations and fee schedules from scratch and
without comparison or consultation with their peers throughout the
state.

To curb this, and to set in place a more uniform standard for food
trucks, this legislation limits the amount of annual fees to $250. In
Cleveland, mobile food vendors pay a $100 permit fee and food truck
managers must purchase a $60 identification badge from the city.  Chica-
go, a city with a population of 2.7 million, charges $660 for a two-year
permit.

In comparison, the City of Buffalo currently charges mobile food truck
vendors a fee of $1,000, far above the national norm and prohibitive to
the growth and expansion of this industry. This cap is both necessary
and practical, affording this growing industry the ability to reach its
full potential across the state.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
This is a new bill.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to the state.

EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately and shall expire and be deemed
repealed two years after such effective date.