How Should Elk Grove Regulate Food Trucks?

Food trucks will have to wait a while longer to see whether they'll be allowed to do business on the streets of Elk Grove.

The Elk Grove Planning Commission on Thursday discussed possible changes to the city laws governing where mobile food vendors can park and for how long, but in the end asked city staff to make some changes and bring the item back on June 21.

Currently, food trucks can only park on public streets for 15 minutes at a time, and must pack up by 2 p.m. would loosen those rules, but commissioners Thursday said they wanted to make sure food trucks wouldn't be able to just park in front of a restaurant, or take up all the parking from another business.

As the planning commission was meeting Thursday, the very food trucks that were being discussed were circled in a nearby parking lot, drawing more than a hundred hungry residents.

Joshua Lurie-Terrell, one of the event's organizers with , said relaxing city law to allow food trucks to park for longer periods of time would probably take away the novelty of SactoMoFo's huge quarterly events, but he's OK with that.

"The suggested changes they're talking about this evening are pretty generous and pretty fair," Lurie-Terrell said.

He also said Elk Grove was moving much faster to open up to food trucks than the city of Sacramento.

"I think Elk Grove is already far ahead of the city of Sacramento in terms of friendliness for food trucks and small business," he said.

Planning Commissioner Nancy Chaires agreed during Thursday's meeting.

"It means we're adapting with the times," she said.

Elk Grove resident Jordan Chan attende the food truck event Thursday, and said he often tries to catch vendors like Drewski's Hot Rod Kitchen on his lunch break. Chan said if the trucks were more common in Elk Grove, he would definitely patronize them more.

Jas Bains, a fellow Elk Grove resident, agreed that he'd like to see food trucks in Elk Grove.

"I'm tired of going to fast food places," he said.

Elk Grove, do you want to see food trucks on Elk Grove's streets? If so, what rules should the city put in place to govern them? Let us know in the comments section below.