So I first got whiff that Rachel Klemek's food truck gathering today didn't go as planned when a reader named Kevin Hungry posted a comment on my original blog post with this:
“Yeah. Just went. Spent 20 min driving around. And it's freaking not happening bthats [I think he meant “Thanks”] for wasting my time! Fail.”
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Then about an hour later, I got an e-mail from Ms. Klemek herself.
She wrote:
Such a bummer…! The property management company (Koll) had given me a verbal OK for the event today (until they have a chance to “write a policy”) and then they shut it down super early. They said that it's related to “liability” issues, but all the trucks have their own insurance (as do we), so I don't get it. We've been a faithful tenant here for 6 years and am stunned that they pulled this.
Klemek added that, apparently, the trucks were shooed away early due to someone calling the property company to complain.
“We love having [food trucks] here and will fight to keep them coming by in the future,” Klemek said.
“We're working on a letter to the Koll Company because when we leased and released the space, there was never any mention in our documents about not allowing food trucks. In fact, up until 2 years ago, when several of our neighbors left Sky Park, there was an old school food truck that would come by every day. And I didn't hear one complaint about that. We will work our hardest to lobby for the trucks to be welcome to Sky Park, so we will see how it develops. I guess they are having issues like this at other Koll properties as well…”
So that's the story folks. This seems like the classic case of the food truck vs. the property owners. But the latter best watch out: The food trucks have Rachel Klemek on their corner and she's ready to rumble.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.