The city of Hermiston has some of the strictest food truck laws in Eastern Oregon, and although the city council loosened some of them recently, there’s still a hard ceiling on how many more trucks can park in Hermiston.
The council tweaked the rules Aug. 26 after hearing vendors complain that there were few areas in town where they could park their businesses. The council passed the ordinance after receiving reassurances from city staff that the rules were still firm enough to prevent food trucks from overwhelming the commercial areas of the town of 19,000 people.
At a prior Hermiston City Council meeting, city manager Byron Smith listed off some of the city’s various restrictions on food trucks. They couldn’t be located within 400 feet of a brick-and-mortar restaurant or another food truck. Food trucks needed to be removed each night between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. And they had to be painted white or a “neutral color.”
“I think the food truck culture is a little more colorful than beige,” Smith said.
After receiving complaints about Hermiston’s food truck rules, Smith said city staff began talking to officials in other Eastern Oregon cities about their regulations and learned that Hermiston’s were highly prohibitive.
In nearby Pendleton, food trucks can’t be located within 100 feet of a permanent restaurant, but only if the restaurant serves a similar kind of food.
Hermiston’s new rules scrap the 400-foot buffer zone, require food trucks be moved once per week, and do away with painting requirements. However, they maintain a hard cap on the number of food trucks that can be located in town. The city will only issue six licenses for self-contained trucks or trailers, and although the city makes exceptions for vendors serving special events or worksites, they’re also subject to limitations.
Smith said the city instituted heavier taco truck regulations as a way to preserve the aesthetics of Hermiston and to prevent food trucks from skirting city regulations. As recently as 2013, the city had nine food trucks with more inquiring about how to locate in Hermiston. The stricter rules reduced that number to three, and Smith said they haven’t received applications in recent years.
Some councilors were still worried after the rule changes that food trucks would inundate the city and ruin its appearance. Doug Primmer, a city councilor and the mayor-elect, said he’d still like to retain some sort of buffer zone.
“I do believe that we should have some kind of a distance requirement, some kind of a component to provide some respite between the different businesses so you’re not having people stacked up on top of one another. And so that Main Street doesn’t become just one food truck after the other,” he said.
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Despite their concerns, the council passed the revamped food truck ordinance. Councilor Roy Barrón said he’s long advocated for less stringent rules and encouraged staff to revisit the license cap if demand outpaces supply. Councilor Nancy Peterson said food trucks were a better alternative to “monopoly-style” chain stores and helped build a sense of community.
“Having a bunch of them down on Main Street, that’s going to get shoppers up and down Main Street,” Peterson said. “That sounds great. The way this culture of food trucks is rolling out and seeing the benefits in many other cities, I think this is a great option.”
The new ordinance also had the support of food truck owners Tara and Tyler Bendixsen.
The Hermiston couple got involved in the food truck business after a trip to visit family in Utah, where they were introduced to “dirty” sodas, sodas that are flavored with additional creams and syrups. Starting their own soda business was a good fit for the family, Tara Bendixsen said.
“Tyler would call me a Dr. Pepper snob,” she said, because she always remarked when a soda was too flat or didn’t taste right.
The Bendixsens named their business Soda Craze and bought a trailer. They started taking Soda Craze to various events around Hermiston, and the business proved popular enough to turn a profit.
Finding a permanent home for Soda Craze turned into a bigger challenge. The couple’s effort at turning the trailer business into a brick-and-mortar drive-thru fell through when the building they were looking at wasn’t compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The family then bought a parking lot with the plan to move their trailer and connect it to city utilities. But the city nixed the plan because it meant the trailer would become a permanent structure rather than a self-contained food truck. The city’s strict food truck laws meant they couldn’t find a spot in town when not at events.
Tara Bendixsen said Soda Craze had an easier time operating in the neighboring towns of Stanfield and Umatilla, with the latter offering them a grant to open up a brick and mortar store.
She said the couple is optimistic they can now open Soda Craze in Hermiston with the loosened rules. But they have to act fast before the city hits its revised cap. The three existing food trucks in Hermiston are counted against the cap, meaning there are only three spots left before the city prohibits additional businesses.
