Grabbing a meal from a food truck is a unique experience.
"It's just something you cannot replicate in any restaurant," said Dave Reynoso, owner of Dave's Dogs Grill in Santa Barbara.
Nine years ago, Dave Reynoso started Dave’s Dogs as a food truck and now it's a brick-and-mortar restaurant. As a born and raised local, Reynoso says a big issue facing food trucks and street vendors is outside vendors coming to Santa Barbara and operating without permits.
"They come and collect and they leave, and if they do not have permits, then it's unfair to restaurants and other food trucks here in Santa Barbara trying to keep the money here in Santa Barbara to better benefit our community," Reynoso said.
Several restaurants and trucks told me they’ve seen fleets of food trucks and push carts being dropped off or parked throughout the city.
Adrian Solis with El Pastorcito says the trucks coming from Los Angeles impact his business financially.
"You can’t really stop people coming here to make money, but you can make it fair. Make them pay for taxes and pay for permits," Solis said.
I spoke with Pedro Hernandez who has been working with his family selling fruit, all day, for the past four years. Hernandez told me his cart doesn’t need a permit.
Although the city of Santa Barbara does require business permits for all vending, it's not strictly enforced, according to Santa Barbara City Council Member Oscar Gutierrez.
"It’s no longer a criminal offense, so it's more like a parking ticket," Gutierrez explained.
The state’s guidance on street vending says, “No jurisdiction can criminally punish street vending and vendors may not be arrested for selling food without a health permit.” However, a local civil citation can be issued for lack of permits which costs $250 to $1,000, but collecting on those fines is challenging.
"It's tricky because if they are an undocumented resident, there is not a lot to hold them to abide by that fine," Gutierrez said.
Enforcing permitting is tricky but the fire code is serious and Santa Barbara's city attorney says 15 individuals have been charged with violations of international fire code.
None were local.
"When we have business operating without a business permit here, paying into those taxes, then they are just taking that money you’re giving them and taking it to another community," Gutierrez said.
Recent changes to Santa Barbara's street vending ordinance require vendors to have a California ID and permission to sell on public property.
"We want people to have street vending business here. We want to make sure you are permitted to do it," Gutierrez said.
