The owner of Mastry’s Brewing Company hopes St. Pete Beach city commissioners will pass a new ordinance governing food trucks during a second reading of the proposed ordinance next month.
- No current ordinance covers food trucks
- Mayor, commissioners voted to pass ordinance
- Next vote during meeting Sept. 12
"Food trucks have been a very common part of business for breweries,” said Mastry's owner Matthew Dahm. “Since we've opened, we've had a lot of requests from our locals to be able to have food trucks.”
Dahm said his brewery does not have a kitchen, and the cuisine food trucks provide could compliment the beer he sells.
"It's a new culture,” he said. “Whether you're talking about the foodies, or you're talking about the craft beer enthusiasts out there, people like dynamic choices, dynamic experiences."
Mayor Al Johnson said because food trucks are unique, there’s no current ordinance that covers the mobile vendors. They’ve been allowed in the past only during special occasions.
“We realized that according to our documents we really couldn’t allow them. No place in the city unless it’s a special event,” Johnson said. “There’s a catch-all in the allowable (uses). It has to be similar in kind and nature to what’s there, and a food truck is a different animal completely.”
Last week Johnson, along with commissioners Terri Finnerty and Rick Falkenstein, voted to pass a new food truck ordinance. The proposed ordinance limits food truck operation to three days per week from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the trucks must remain on a business’ property, not on vacant land. The places they can operate is also limited.
“We don’t want to have food trucks 24-7 all the way up and down the island,” Johnson said. “This concentrates it around what we call our downtown core, which is Corey Avenue and a few blocks north and south of that.”
The business that would host the food truck would also need to get a conditional use permit good for one year.
Dahm said so far nobody has complained about the proposed ordinance. In fact, he has letters from nearby restaurants that state they support it.
"This is something that the community's asking for,” he said. “If the community said, 'Matt I'm perfectly happy coming out to Mastry's Brewing Co. without having food trucks’, we wouldn't be pushing the agenda."
The commission is scheduled to take their second vote on the food truck ordinance, that will put the law into effect, at their next meeting on Sept. 12.