A food fight is brewing in Bristol and it involves rolling restaurants.
Downtown restaurants that are struggling to survive in this weak economy are asking city leaders by ban food vending carts from North Main Street, the Bristol Press reports,
“It looks like Chinatown out there,” John Spaniotis, an owner of Center Restaurant and Pizza told the Press. “They take my business every day.”
“It’s just a no-brainer,” Roberta Costanti, a co-owner of Blondie’s Grill and Patio told the Press. She told city leaders this week “to get rid of these vendors.”
The vendors are not on the same page.
Ken Meehan, who has run Ken’s Grille out of a cart for more than a decade, said the notion that government might force him to quit “is very scary to me.”
“I always heard competition is good. It keeps you honest,” he told the Press.
The city’s ordinance committee might be able to regulate where the vendors can park, perhaps pushing them further away from storefront establishments. The city is allowed to create a vending zone through a municipal statute, similar to one already on the books in Hartford.
