The City Council finds as follows:
A. Mobile
food vending has the potential to pose special dangers to the public
health, safety and welfare of residents of the City.
B. The
act of looking for prospective buyers while operating a vending vehicle
makes the operator less attentive to pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
When done on public roadways, this poses obvious traffic and safety
risks to the public which the City seeks to prevent.
C. Vending
vehicles parked in one location for more than 10 minutes at a time
may exacerbate traffic problems in highly congested areas and obstruct
sidewalks. This also creates safety issues for children who may run
across public roadways attempting to access the vendors, especially
around school sites when children are coming to and going from school.
D. Mobile
food merchants who fail to park their vending vehicles correctly during
a transaction attract prospective buyers onto public roadways, creating
a further traffic and public safety hazard.
E. The
sale of nonfood items presents special regulatory challenges which
may affect the health, safety and welfare of minors who frequent this
type of vendor, often without adult supervision.
F. The
City has an important and substantial public interest in providing
regulations to prevent safety, traffic and health hazards, as well
as to preserve the peace, safety and welfare of the community and
exercises its authority pursuant to Section 22455 of the California
Vehicle Code, which permits local authorities to regulate the type
of vending and the time, place, and manner of vending from vehicles
upon the street in order to promote public safety.
(Ord. 563 § 3, 2019)
The following words and phrases, when used in this chapter,
have the meanings in this section unless, from the context, a different
meaning is intended or specifically defined:
"Beverages"
means a liquid for drinking that does not contain alcohol.
"Food" or "foodstuff"
means any substance as defined by Section 113781 of the California
Health and Safety Code, and includes a raw, cooked, or processed edible
substance, ice, beverage, an ingredient used or intended for use or
for sale in whole or in part for human consumption, and chewing gum.
"Food preparation"
means and refers to the activities defined by Section 113791
of the California
Health and Safety Code, and includes packaging,
processing, assembling, portioning, or any operation that changes
the form, flavor, or consistency of food, but does not include trimming
of produce.
"Ice cream truck"
means a vending vehicle used to sell, barter, exchange, give,
or display only prepackaged ice cream.
"Mobile food merchant"
means any individual that operates or assists in the operation
of a vending vehicle in the sale, display, solicitation or offer for
sale, barter, exchange, gift or otherwise of foodstuffs from a vending
vehicle.
"Mobile food vending"
means the sale, display, solicitation or offer for sale,
barter, exchange, gift or otherwise, of foodstuffs from any vending
vehicle.
"School"
means any preschool, elementary school, middle school, junior
high school, senior high school, continuation high school, or any
branch thereof.
"Vending vehicle"
means any self-propelled, motorized device by which any person
or property may be propelled or moved upon a highway, excepting a
device moved exclusively by human power, or which may be drawn or
towed by a self-propelled, motorized vehicle, or used exclusively
upon stationary rails or tracks, from which foodstuffs are sold, displayed,
solicited or offered for sale, bartered, exchanged, given or otherwise.
(Ord. 563 § 3, 2019)
The mobile food merchant must comply with all applicable State
and local laws, including, but not limited to, the requirements of
this chapter and the County of San Diego. This chapter is not intended
to be enforced against pedestrian food merchants or against mobile
food merchants who operate human powered push carts and other nonself-propelled
vehicles including trailers.
(Ord. 563 § 3, 2019)
All vending vehicles from which foodstuffs are sold, displayed,
solicited or offered for sale or bartered or exchanged must have displayed
in a conspicuous place a valid certificate to operate required by
the County of San Diego.
(Ord. 563 § 3, 2019)
It is unlawful for every mobile food merchant to sell or offer
for sale, display, solicit, barter, exchange, gift or otherwise, any
food and/or beverages to any minor child, attending any of the public
or private schools within the City, on the street or from other public
places within 1,000 feet of the exterior boundaries of land on which
is located any public or private school within the City between the
hours of 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. of any school day.
The above provision does not apply to any mobile food merchant
who has received written consent of the school principal or other
authorized school official to park, stop or stand for the purpose
of vending when such authorization does not interfere with public
vehicle traffic or pose a traffic safety hazard to school children.
Any such written authorization must be kept and maintained with the
mobile merchant at all times for inspection.
(Ord. 563 § 3, 2019)
Any mobile food merchant identified in an application for a
special event or farmers' market or any City sponsored or approved
event is required to obtain a business license, but is otherwise exempt
from the requirements of this chapter pertaining to mobile food vending,
provided that the vending vehicle is parked for the duration of the
special event to conduct its business and conducts no other business
within the City.
(Ord. 563 § 3, 2019; Ord. 590 § 2, 2021)