California City Regulates Mobile Vendors

Lathrop city officials are working to pass a mobile vendor ordinance to regulate pushcarts and food wagons. The ordinance would give officials and local police to oversee the mobile vendors and require them to provide information about their equipment and merchandise. They would be subject to criminal background checks and inspections by policy. Parking hours and areas of operation would also be regulated.

Lathrop is one among a few cities nationwide opening policy to overseeing such vendors. In large cities, vendors such as these go largely unregulated and unwatched. The vendors in Lathrop will be required to pay a feed from $225 per cart. The amount of time a vendor can be in one location has increased from 10 minutes to 30 minutes.

And those mandatory criminal background checks for every vendor, a result of the unfortunate incident of a sex offender found operating an ice cream truck in Sacramento. The man was caught taking photographs of children and their homes. An ice cream truck driver who has access to children and provides those children with a false sense of security.

Mayor Kirsty Sayles said, "It's a cheaper and better way to do business and to protect the children, I can sign on to that."