Ice cream trucks will need to register with festival to sell near event

Festivals and special events in Abbeville bring large crowds, providing tremendous opportunities for vendors.
The Abbeville City Council wants to make sure that those vendors providing wares are doing so through the appropriate steps.
The council discussed permit requirements for vendors Tuesday evening during an ordinance committee meeting. The council specifically focused on requirements during festivals and city-sponsored events, many of which take place in Magdalen Square in downtown Abbeville.
“We have had vendors who haven’t registered with the festival come and take business from a festival or event,” said Councilman Brady Broussard Jr., whose District C includes the downtown area.
The issues comes a few weeks after an ice cream truck parked near the square during the annual Daylily Festival.
“I witnessed him park right across from the square,” Broussard said. “He was not a registered vendor for the festival.”
The council passed an ordinance last year that regulates mobile food trucks, one that prohibits that type of vendor from setting up in close proximity to a festival or event. However, the ordinance did not have language including ice cream trucks. In fact, the city’s license and business regulations did not have a definition for a “traditional” ice cream truck. That will soon change.
“We are adding a definition,” City Attorney Ike Funderburk said. “A traditional ice cream truck means a motorized vehicle which dispenses packaged single-serving frozen treats, while making frequent stops in residential neighborhoods. It is thus distinguished from a food truck because food is not prepared therein, and it does not become stationary for more than a few minutes.”
Ice cream trucks will now fall in line with mobile food trucks in regard to festivals and special events.
“Mobile food trucks were prohibited to sell at those events,” Funderburk said. “We are including the ice cream trucks.”
There are exceptions. The aforementioned vendors can apply with a festival or city-sponsored special event.
“If festival licenses them to be on the grounds to sell, they can,” Funderburk said.
“If they are not licensed by the either the (Louisiana) Cattle Festival, or the Giant Omelette Celebration, or any of the other festivals or special events we have in town, they cannot.”
This will not affect an ice cream truck owner’s normal routine, even during a time a festival or event is occurring.
“The ice cream truck can go through the neighborhoods and make its traditional stops,” Funderburk said. “They cannot park on the grounds of the festival or special event.”
Councilman Francis Touchet Jr. asked how the food truck ordinance affects someone selling watermelons in a parking lot or other location in the city.
“That is exempted from the mobile food truck ordinance,” Funderburk explained. “That’s something that falls under farm to market sales and they do not have to have a permit.”
Broussard said he feels the bottom line is that vendors who properly register with a festival or event should be the ones to benefit from the large crowds.
“It’s not about ice cream trucks or mobile food trucks,” Broussard said. “It’s about if you are going to sell your wares at a festival or sanctioned event with the city, you’ve got to register with the event. You can’t just show up and use the visitors to that sanctioned event to make a profit.
“You’re not going to come and use an assembled group that is there because of that sanctioned event.”