Tonight, the SanTana City Council begins hearing on a proposed ordinance that would effectively choke to death the city’s famed taco truck scene. Oh, there’s nothing in the current language that flat-out says the city wants to deport loncheras. But as I reported last month, proposed new regulations—like banning trucks from parking within 500 feet of a school or park, prohibiting any amplified sound or scrolling signs, or not allowing them to park within 100 feet of a sidewalk—would run off mobile vendors under the threat of daily misdemeanors.
Even more ominously, the City Council, to cloak themselves in the embrace of tacos, is also pushing forth the beginnings of an attempt to turn SanTana into Portland, Seattle, Austin and other loser hipster cities that Brave New Urbanists keep trying to turn DTSA into. A staff report discloses that “city staff researched best practices from other cities that had mobile vending regulations in place.” Toward that, a provision babbles about how taco trucks are allowed on private property provided they have a Land Use certificiate and a special event permit—the beginnings of what Council-vendida Michele Martinez alluded to when mentioning designated food lots as an alternative.
Fuck that.
Laughably, the city says this ordinance falls in line with the city’s Strategic Plan’s fifth goal “Community Health, Livability, Engagement, and Sustainability.” Already buying that horchata is Orange County Register reporter Jessica Kwong, who never met a SanTana City Council move she wanted to criticize or a councilpendejo for whom she didn’t want to serve for as a stenographer. Usually the approved propagandist for Martinez, she recently accompanied Council-Vendido Jose Solorio on a walk of produce trucks to tell the world that what “students were buying weren’t apples and lettuce, however, but rather soda and processed snacks such as Takis, spicy-hot rolled corn tortilla chips. One truck offered five types of toy guns.”
Hey, Jessica: When was the last time you ever heard kids buy apples and lettuce instead of snacks? Unless they’re one of those Waldorf School weirdos?
SanTana City Council meeting is tonight starting at 5:45. Lonchera lovers of la naranja, unite! And lawyers: here’s a lawsuit if ever there was one…
