LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Louisville Metro Public Works committee is sending the controversial ordinance regulating vendors like food trucks back to the full council after passing several amendments, which includes striking a section that regulates the noise from a vendor's generator.
"There's one outstanding issue and that's this section G, which reads, 'No vendor shall operate a generator which exceeds decibel levels of 70 dB,'" Councilman Bill Hollander said.
After the full council sent the ordinance back to committee in August to work out several issues, Hollander and other council members worked with the Louisville Food Truck Association and other vendors about their worries over the restrictions. According to Hollander, one of the issues vendors had with the generator regulations was that it would be treating food trucks and differently from other commercial vehicles.
"I believe their position is if it was applied to all commercial vehicles, it may well be acceptable," he said. "And of course, we can't do that in this ordinance. We would need to do that in a different ordinance, and perhaps that would be in an amendment to the noise ordinance."
Even Councilwoman Barbara Sexton Smith, one of the bill's sponsors, said she has changed her stance on this section and that she believes the issue should be addressed in a separate ordinance.
"I too would encourage my colleagues to strike G from this, although I was the one who spoke for a very long time about the importance of the health of our hearing," she said.
But Councilman Brandon Coan, one of the bill's sponsors, spoke in favor of keeping the noise regulation in the ordinance.
"I think it's disingeniune to suggest that all commercial vehicles are equal and have to have the exact same rules apply to them all the time," he said. "They obviously don't. Taxi cabs are different from delivery trucks are different from a food truck, for example."
The committee also voted to narrow the requirement for vendors and their workers to list any criminal convictions to just the past five years and only for mobile vendors or peddlers, which includes people who go door-to-door or drive through neighborhoods, like ice cream trucks.
The committee also added clarification to the provision that in cases where a certain number of public parking spots needed to be kept available, the private property owners are responsible for ensuring that there are not too may vendors taking up spots.
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