Mark Kindt wrote:
Business owners and business investors have chosen their risks they take and have agreed to engage with other business owners and business investors on a competitive basis. That's the system we've chosen for ourselves to date. Innovations in that system can prove disruptive; that's all part of the understood risk.
I get the idea that there may be one or more potential nuisance issues to be addressed for residents.
I also get the idea that there may be a better use for that lot or that the lot may have previously been used for a better use.
(Yesterday was the first day that I left my home without a coat in six months.)
It appears to me that the proposal is unlikely to merit a positive reception. It may have surface design appeal, but as a business plan it makes little sense.
If it is a concept for a public park, it will have broad-based opposition.
I see this as a flash-in-the-pan.
Mark
I go back to my early restaurateur days, of owning hotdog carts in Cleveland. When Greg and I re-introduced hot dog carts to downtown Cleveland after a 30+ year absence the brick and mortar restaurants raised hell, and we sat down with them and the city and hammered out a deal that made everybody happy. When I bought the carts I had a laid back atmosphere, and by the end of the talks, I grew to understand and respect the brick and mortar owners. I see food trucks mostly the same way.
1) mobile, they can come in set up next to brick and mortar on their strongest nights, even serving similar bill of fare with much less overhead, and then leave. Meanwhile the brick and mortar deals with the neighborhood, safety, cleaning, getting along etc. Unfair advantage food truck.
2) Staff, staff on food trucks is much less and much less expensive, which in the long run adds less to the economy. Advantage food truck
3) Taxes, brick and mortar businesses are subject to not just taxes, but more closely watched taxes. Believe me, they say it is not true, it is. Advantage Food truck.
4) Board of health inspections, food trucks are check less than brick and mortar. Advantage Food truck
5) Food quality. Generally brick and mortar can prepare better food with a full service kitchen but not always. Draw.
6) Location, brick and mortar in one location so can build clientele over longer period of time. With social media and food truck cool factor, then can get word out. Draw
7) Cost, while food trucks can cost tens of thousands of dollars, merely the bathrooms in a brick and mortar restaurant can cost tens of thousands of dollars. The same is for kitchens. One way we addressed this with carts was we had to have a brick and mortar address with full kitchen, and men's and women's bathrooms with two doors on each. This gave a nod to brick and mortar, and allowed them to say we were trying to even the playing field. Advantage Food truck.
What I am getting at it is an unfair advantage for food trucks that consumers care little about but brick and mortar restaurants do. So if all you want are food trucks, and give those that have invested hundreds of thousands in a community serious unfair competition, allow food trucks to set up in empty fields or parking lots. And disappear in the night with their reduced liability, reduced taxes, reduces costs and reduce accountability to a community.
I have had this stance since the city started to allow food trucks at Lakewood events because they are cool. Taco trucks setting up in front of brick and mortar Mexican restaurants. Starbucks truck right in front of Root. Sandwich truck in front of Melt, and on and on. On a day set up to celebrate Lakewood, the very businesses hosting the event, losing their parking, are losing the one things they pay the most for, location, location, location.
If there were not bars are restaurants near this place, maybe an occasional "event" would be OK. But to whore out the neighborhood at the expense of those brick and mortar restaurants, ice cream shops, beverage shops and bars that have invested heavily in the neighborhood and the city seems short cited to me.
But again, what do I know about this. Re-read Mr. Gill's response.
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