WHITEFISH – The street food wars have ended here, at least for six months.
Less than a year after creating an ordinance to allow and monitor mobile food vendors in Whitefish, the city council voted on Monday night to repeal the law and go back to the drawing board. The council voted 4-3, with Mayor Mike Jenson providing the tiebreaking vote. Councilors John Muhlfeld, Ryan Friel and Phil Mitchell dissented.
The two vendors operating are allowed to finish out their respective 60-day permits but will then not be granted renewal. No new permits will be issued. Neither of the two vendors, Michael Tigue nor David Sheeran, was present at the meeting.
Council instructed city staff to draft a new ordinance and bring it back for review within six months. Councilors Muhlfeld and Chris Hyatt will help with the new ordinance.
Friel was in favor of tweaking the current ordinance instead of scrapping it and starting over. Comparing it to a can of Chef Boyardee, he said the city hasn’t waited long enough to see if it likes the ordinance.
“You opened the can,” Friel said, “but you didn’t heat it up.”
A controversy over the vendor ordinance had been gaining steam for months, with Richard Kramer, owner of the Red Caboose on Central Avenue, telling city officials that street vendors were hurting his restaurant. Kramer spoke at Monday’s meeting and said, as a property tax-paying downtown business owner, he felt “slighted” by the city.
“The vendors say, ‘I’m only there five hours,’” Kramer said. “Well, they get to pick the best five hours.”
Kramer said late-night weekend shift, when he is the only operation selling food downtown other than the two street vendors, is his most profitable. Sheeran sells pizza from a vacant lot on the corner of First Street and Central Avenue. Across the street, at the old Flanagan’s Central Station location, Tigue sells sandwiches and other munchies.
Dave Yager addressed the council about his desire to take his wife’s food vendor, Shichuan BBQ, to Whitefish. The Yagers work special events throughout the valley and have often been found in the summers at Depot Park in Kalispell.
Yager said he didn’t understand how the council could place a moratorium on an activity that takes place on private property. Under the ordinance, food vendors must operate on private property. Yager said he had been seeking permission from a property owner prior to Monday’s meeting.
To be licensed to operate in Flathead County, Yager said his wife’s vendor already undergoes about a dozen health inspections per year and maintains quality standards. After the meeting, his wife, Rong Yager, said she had invested more than $60,000 in a new truck, trailer and insurance.
A town, Rong Yager said, should be able to have both restaurants and street vendors without conflict if properly administered.
“We want to bring the community together,” she said, “not against each other.”