City of Tega Cay considering possible changes for mobile food truck vendors: Tuesday, Oct. 3

Mohamed Alansari is the owner of Cairo Cuisine, a mobile food truck.

"People really love our chicken and lamb over rice, as well as our lamb gyro," said Alansari.

Alansari has been cooking up special dishes in his mobile food truck for five years, serving hot plates all over South Carolina.

Nick Cauthen, the manager of planning and development at Tega Cay, is now pushing for more relaxed regulations for mobile food truck vendors like Cairo Cuisine, with the goal of being more friendly to small businesses.

One of the revisions includes reducing separation requirements.

"Tega Cay is a good area and a busy area," said Alansari.

Right now food trucks are required to be 400 feet from any mobile vendor, residential use, or zoning area. But the planning and development team is hoping to reduce that to 200 feet unless invited by residential amenities.

"After comparing this to other jurisdictions around the state, this seemed excessive based on the direction we heard from the council, so we will reduce that to 200 feet," said Cauthen.

Cauthen also proposed renewing permits annually rather than 15 days along and allowing some food trucks to have the option to park overnight.

The ideas came with pushback from some city leaders.

"If I give a food vendor permission to park in my driveway but someone across the street a neighbor doesn’t want to see that food truck, shouldn’t he have a say in that," said a city spokesperson.

Some city leaders shared concerns about liability when leaving a food truck on city property overnight.

READ MORE: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/tega-cay-considers-relaxing-regulations-food-trucks-south-carolina/275-7c97c4d3-27ae-406a-90e5-62e84fb8e012

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