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Street vendors call regulations a drag
City spokesperson expects fewer restrictions next year

Karen K. HO
Northern News Services
Wednesday, October 7, 2015

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
New food truck regulations may have been put in place this year, but vendors like Murray Jones said they didn't have a significant impact on business beyond making it hard to operate downtown.

NNSL photo/graphic

Mitu and Mohammed Nahar stand inside their Saffron food trailer parked on Franklin Avenue on June 30. The Nahars and Murray Jones of Murray's Curbside Treats 'n' Eats said the new food truck regulations made it difficult to find consistent parking. - Karen K. Ho/NNSL photo

"It was an inconvenience," he told Yellowknifer. "Food trucks, historically do better when they're together."

But the city restricted how many operators could be located on each street this summer.

However, Nalini Naidoo, the city's communications and economic development director, pointed out the Food on Franklin event on Thursday nights over the summer allowed vendors to converge on the city-owned 50/50 lot.

"That was kind of neat experiment that brought a different kind of touch to the downtown," she said. "Hopefully that will continue."

Both Jones, owner and operator of Murray's Curbside Treats 'n' Eats, and Mitu Nahar of Indian food vendor Saffron, expressed frustration at the difficulty in finding parking spots on a daily basis while following the one-vendor-per-street rule.

"Jennifer of Fresh Squeezed would be in front of the Greenstone building, and then I'd have to go to the next street, and then One of a Thai would be in front of the Northern Image Arts," Jones said. "It would have been nicer for the clients to be side by side."

Nahar said she didn't mind the regulations and never fought with the other vendors.

However, the lack of permanent or specially allotted space meant every day was a first-come, first-served situation for parking, and the setup of her trailer and her pick-up truck meant she always needed two spots to open up.

"It was really frustrating me for a few days," she said. "Sometimes I couldn't get one until 12 when I was supposed to open."

Murray said even though the food trucks and mobile vendors were willing to pay for spots, it would have been administrative nightmare for the city to bag the parking meters on a daily basis.

"It was a little disconcerting sometimes but that's the nature of the game sometimes," Murray said. "I got lucky this year, there were only three days where I had to drive around for a spot."

Jones hopes that when the city revisits the by-law legislation changes will be made that will make conditions in Yellowknife closer to the ones in Calgary.

"Hopefully we can get back to two-per street," he said. "It's only a one-year agreement."

Naidoo pointed out that before this year there was no specific regulation about the number of food trucks allowed per street.

However, she did add that the map of locations for food trucks and mobile food vendors will be revised for next year with "probably less restrictions."

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