Food Trucks Not Welcomed

Posted On September 27, 2017

As an example of government overreach and over regulation, I present to you an Hurricane ravaged Florida town that thinks a BBQ truck is breaking the law. No, seriously. Triple J’s BBQ sent its food truck to Green Cove Springs in Florida to feed the men and women who are trying like mad to restore power and other infrastructure only to be booted by local police sent by the town hall.

Triple J’s BBQ was not even allowed to just give away the food to hungry, hard working men and women doing their best to rebuild the infrastructure of the town.

A few days after Hurricane Irma blasted through the town of Green Cove Springs, Florida, Jack Roundtree drove his Triple J’s BBQ truck downtown to give residents a hot lunch and hand out free bar-be-que to utility workers trying to get the power restored.

It didn’t take long for the cops to show up.

Now I don’t know about you but this would not be the time to strictly enforce a bad city ordinance. As I have said, even if a local eating establishment did complain (notice they did not specify what eating establishment), with so many eating places still closed, how could you decide to kick out those who want to feed the workers trying to rebuild your storm ravaged city?

Why don’t restaurants operate their own food trucks to compete with other food trucks. If I were a brick and mortar restaurant that had mobile food truck competition, I would put a small fleet of these inexpensive units on the streets so people could sample what my sit down eatery had to offer.

I would corner the market. I would have the food trucks all over the city, offer discounts to food truck customers to visit my sit down eatery and rake in the cash.

But instead, what we have is crony capitalism where a few private companies team up with government to restrict competition in the private market. And this now bleeds over into storm devastated municipalities and the only people who suffer are the citizens of said municipality.

Time to reduce regulation at all levels of government and let the free market compete, freely.