On Tuesday, community members took their concerns about recent food truck regulations to the Paso Robles City Council.
Paso Robles Assistant Planner Piper Smith addressed the current permit requirements and facilitated the discussion.
“There were about 36 mobile vendor–related complaints about the city, and that was in a three-month time span,” she said.
Some of the concerns included clarification of permit rules, trucks with proper permits getting grouped with trucks with improper permits, and debates about whether trucks take business from local restaurants.
"It was my choice to open up the food truck. I didn't open it up to undercut your business. I opened it up because I wanted to have my own business," Bill Alicia with Yabba Dabba Dogs said at the meeting.
Another concerned community member was Luis Diaz with Buenos Diaz food truck. He says that unpermitted trucks hurt business for fully permitted trucks.
“Everybody started parking different food trucks from different areas, and they come and [people] start making a lot of complaints. Also, they started operating with no permits, with no health department,” Diaz said.
Smith says that previously, food trucks were categorized into a broad group of mobile vendors, but that changed in October of 2024.
“That is when we kind of put them in their own category, made them a little bit more clear of what our requirements were for operation,” Smith said.
While Tuesday's meeting is the first step in any potential changes, with several concerns voiced at the meeting, Diaz tells me he hopes that this situation is solved for the sake of his business and others.
"They affect us. Yeah, because we can’t operate here in Paso Robles. Now we got to go to Atascadero. We got to go to different cities we can run, because we got some bills to pay,” Diaz said.
At the end of the meeting, the council decided to assemble an Ad Hoc committee with council members Chris Bausch and Steve Gregory.
