Sarnia scraps food truck spacing requirements

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Sarnia’s food truck scene could be changing this summer, with spacing restrictions recently dropped from the city’s bylaw.

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Council voted 5-2 recently to scrap clauses requiring food trucks be at least 180 metres apart, and 90 metres from restaurants offering similar fare. Also gone are requirements for separate licences for each business location, and six-metre separations from bus stops and building entrances, after public feedback on the changes turned out mostly in favour.

The changes take effect immediately, the city’s Steve Henschel said.

Staff also plan to examine in more detail where food trucks should go in public spaces like parks, he said.

Eight food trucks were licensed to operate in Sarnia in 2023, he has said.

Of 179 city survey responses, including four from food trucks and six from restaurants, 91 per cent said yes to food trucks operating closer together, and two-thirds said it’s OK to operate close to restaurants selling similar fare, a city staff report said.

Two of the six restaurants weighing in viewed food trucks as competitors, it said.

Several survey comments cited the success of food truck clusters in other municipalities, something Sarnia is eyeing as part of its 15-year, $55-million waterfront master plan that includes building gathering spaces along the St. Clair riverfront.

“This change will allow for creatively employing and co-locating these mobile food and beverages uses in more flexible and longer-term formats, to create strong experiences in animating spaces,” the document from Re: public Urbanism says about allowing food truck clusters.

Don Franklin, who, with wife Dee, operates Archies fry truck under the Blue Water Bridge in neighbouring Point Edward, said he opposes letting food trucks set up shop beside restaurants that sell similar food.

“There’s enough room for all of us to cohabitate,” he said. “I don’t think we have to be on top of one another.”

The restaurant business is hard and expensive, he said. “I totally get both sides of the story.”

Point Edward has no food truck spacing rules, said Jim Burns, the village’s chief administrator.

Franklin said he and his wife used to run Yogi’s, also under the bridge. They sold the business and retired, relaunching under the new name when the cost of living spiked a few years later, he said.

This is their second year as Archies, he said.

Coun. Terry Burrell, who opposed the bylaw changes, noted brick-and-mortar businesses invest more and have to pay commercial tax, which food trucks don’t.

“I just don’t think it’s fair to allow the restaurants to have to compete with the food trucks,” he said.

Coun. Brian White said he doesn’t view the business types as direct competitors.

“If I’m on the move and I want street food, that’s what I’m going for,” he said. “I’m not choosing that over a sit-down restaurant. I’ve already made the decision I’m not going to a sit-down restaurant.”

The bylaw lets the market decide and gives people who want to get into the food truck business more opportunity, he said.

Coun. Dave Boushy, the only other vote against the bylaw changes, said he doesn’t understand why a food truck would set up beside an established business.

Coun. Bill Dennis called the changes a great idea, noting “many brick-and-mortar restaurants have started out as food trucks.”

Mayor Mike Bradley and Coun. Adam Kilner were absent.

A bylaw wording change also was approved, eliminating the term “refreshment vehicles,” which is non-standard language according to the Food Trucks Association of Canada, the staff report said.

tkula@postmedia.com