Dim and Den Sum, the most widely recognized of Cleveland’s food trucks, was in the news again in recent weeks, but not for anything coming out of its kitchen. Owner Chris Hodgson was vocal on Facebook, Twitter, and in media interviews about Cleveland’s patently ridiculous restrictions on food trucks.
But how hard could it be, right? Get a truck, get a permit, get inspected, pick a spot, serve food. Yeah, not so fast my friend.
While new legislation is making its way through council to clear up the city’s regulations on food trucks, the process by which food trucks currently can do business is, at the very least, convoluted and, more accurately, incredibly prohibitive to the point you’d be surprised anyway would willingly take on the endeavor. What’s worse: the new legislation represents only a modicum of improvement.
Scene’s own Doug Trattner explains in this week’s Fresh Water Cleveland:
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2011.
wtf is wrong with this city? no wonder people are moving away.
Nobody kills potential greatness like Cleveland politicians. I bet if Russo and Dimora had their smelly fingers in the truck owner’s pockets we’d have 1000 food trucks in Cleveland. And to the worried restaurants, if a food truck steals business from your place you should either improve your own business, or shut it down for being so lame. A little competition would improve lots of businesses in this town.