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Mountain Home’s City Council will take up the second reading of an ordinance that overhauls how the city regulates food trucks, mobile vendors and food truck courts. The measure would repeal two ordinances passed in 2020 and fold their rules into one. The council meets Thursday, July 2, at 5 p.m. at the Municipal Building, 720 Hickory St.
City Clerk Scott Liles and Hillrey Adams are presenting the ordinance, which would repeal Ordinance No. 2020-48 and Ordinance No. 2020-25. Those two measures now govern mobile vendors and the city’s food court rules separately.
The rewrite does three main things. It separates food sellers from non-food sellers, puts firmer limits on how long a vendor can stay in one place, and gives food truck courts their own set of rules. Much of the language updates and consolidates what is already on the books.
New definitions for vendors
The current rules label food trucks as “mobile food vendors” and group them with other outdoor vendors. The proposed ordinance splits the two. “Food trucks” would cover vendors selling food and drinks, while “mobile vendors” would cover those selling non-food items.
License fee stays the same
The cost to operate would not change. A vendor would pay $150 for a food truck or mobile vendor license, the same fee charged now.
A tighter 30-day rule
Both the current and proposed rules cap a vendor at 30 continuous days in one spot. The difference is what happens after that.
The current ordinance does not say how far a vendor must move or when they can come back. The proposed ordinance requires the vendor to vacate the property and stay away for 30 days before returning.
Tables and chairs would stay off-limits at individual vendor sites under both versions.
Food truck courts
The proposal also reworks the rules for grouped vendors. What the current ordinance calls a “mobile food court,” defined as a congregation of mobile food vehicles, would become a “food truck court.”
The proposed ordinance defines a food truck court as a commercial space dedicated to food trucks and limits it to food trucks only. The 30-day residency cap would not apply there.
The current ordinance reaches that exemption indirectly by leaving food courts out of Ordinance 2020-48. The proposed version states it plainly. Seating would still be allowed at the courts, as it is now.
Zoning amendment moves alongside
A companion measure on the same agenda would update the city’s zoning ordinance and its table of permitted uses, presented by Clay Strain. That table lists “food mobile vehicle court” and “roadside vendor and/or food truck” as permitted uses in certain zoning districts.
What happens next
Thursday’s action is a second reading, not final adoption. Arkansas law generally requires an ordinance to be read on three separate days unless the council votes to suspend that rule. If the council suspends the rules, it could adopt the ordinance Thursday. Otherwise it would return for a third reading.
