As the city works on revising its vending regulations, one proposed change is already headed to the Board of Alders.
The revision calls for expanding Mayor Toni Harp’s ability to declare “festivals” in parts of the city beyond the Green. It could change the way that vendors make their green — at least on festival days.
Alders received the revision as a communication on their Monday night meeting agenda and assigned the item to committee.
Steve Fontana, the city’s deputy director of economic development, said the current ordinance was written more than a decade ago and addresses vending only around the Green. After the city put on a successful food truck festival on Long Wharf last summer, the city began to look at ways that it could replicate that success and possibly put on such events in other parts of the city. It also has been looking for ways to update its ordinances governing food truck and cart vending, to get a better handle on the practice in the city. Fontana said that process is still ongoing within the economic development department.
The revised version of the ordinance leaves the existing ordinance virtually unchanged except for an additional clause that says: “For the duration of declared festivals within the city at locations other than the New Haven Green, the City reserves the right to direct vendors to operate in other, non-designated locations consistent with City vending regulations. While such declaration is in effect, the City shall provide such police protection as shall be necessary to protect all pedestrians.”
Requirements that festival declarations must be publicly disclosed — a slight change in previous language that required notice in “the major public newspapers” — to alders “no more than fourteen (14) and not less than seven (7) days before the date of the festival remains.”
Fontana said the language of the existing ordinance arbitrarily limited festivals to the Green, which is likely where such events occurred. After the food truck festival on Long Wharf, he said the city has been hearing from other groups that want to hold similar events. If alders ultimately approve the change, it could mean that vendors beyond the Green, who regularly vend in an area, will have to pay the festival’s fee to vend in that same area during a festival, or move for the duration of the festival.
