Okay.

All right, we'll go ahead and get started with the city council study session for Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025.

We have one item on the agenda, and it's a discussion regarding regulations for mobile food trucks as it relates to Oklahoma House Bill 1076.

And we have Beth here from the legal department to have that discussion with us.

Hello everyone.

My name's Beth Makala.

I'm an assistant city attorney here, and I work on licensing provisions, zoning, uh public works matters a lot.

So you'll see me for those things.

What I have today is just what it's said in the agenda.

These are updates in response to state legislation that's effective November 1st.

The biggest one is Oklahoma House Bill 1076, which was actually in uh the title for today.

There's at least one more that kind of indirectly touches on this that I'll get to at the end.

But this is the State Department of Health regulations.

Uh the bill added new provisions, had a mandatory uh measures in it.

And um essentially now the result of this is that municipalities will be only issuing licenses to uh mobile food vendors in recognition of state licenses already granted, which essentially means we need to verify that they are complying with the state requirements before they're operating in our municipal boundaries.

Um we cannot deviate too far from the state laws.

It's pretty clear about that that whatever we do has to be in compliance with this act.

Um, nonetheless, I find that their provisions are generally in line with what we're doing anyway.

So there really weren't a lot of changes that needed to be made.

But if you see the red line version that was passed out, it looks like a lot of red, but it's mostly additions to make sure that we're complying.

Uh the next thing is that uh food establishment licenses have been defined.

Uh, we'll get more into the definitions later, but that kind of feeds into the whole framework of what we're doing here today.

And of course, there's general rules um on just operations that address safety, nuisance, trash, um making sure that they're good neighbors.

Three aspects that were specifically addressed in the state law that I wanted you to be aware of is where they're allowed to operate.

On municipal property, it's what we say they can do.

Um, and then on private commercial property, they must have permission.

However, as you'll see later, we're not really allowed to tell them in what manner they have to get that permission.

They're just responsible to make sure they're not trespassing.

Um, and then on residential properties, uh, there are limits to how long they can locate, and of course they must be there with permission of uh residential uh property owner.

Consider Peacock.

Sorry, not to like just get to the weeds all of a sudden.

Well, we go back one slide real quick.

Sure, sorry.

It was the private commercial, okay.

Where food establishments are allowed by zoning.

Does that mean that basically a restaurant has to be allowed by zoning at that location currently?

Like you couldn't see a food truck at a gas station per se.

Uh yes, and so if they're going to be yes, that's what it means.

Okay.

They need permission when they're in commercial districts of the private property owner.

Yes.

But they don't have to necessarily be zoned.

Again, just the uh the example of a food truck in a gas station.

Gas station isn't zoned for a restaurant.

I guess it's zoned for commercial.

Yes.

Just trying to seem like some gray here, right?

Right.

We actually don't have any zoning provisions that touch food trucks.

We only really have um regulations in our current licensure that reaches um fixed food vendors.

Fixed food vendors have to be specifically zoned as you know, a restaurant or or what have you.

Uh, but because we don't have any zoning provisions that would say they can't locate here, uh, they are going to be allowed in a gas station.

Okay.

In a right.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

No, that's all right.

I get it.

I get your question.

It was kind of a roundabout way.

Thank you.

Council Murray.

Uh, and then on that note, I know we're going through a zoning and subriggs update.

Is that something that could be worked on in that so we can identify spots where that is the best use for that area for highest and best, whatever.

And and to council member grant's point, I've seen language in different parts of the country that kind of define the operation of, and you'll see uh mobile food vendors.

Uh they'll pull up in an industrial park at break time, and several businesses will all come out and grab stuff off the truck, and they're like time limits.

You can be in this neighborhood parked on the street doing this business for X minutes per stop, and you may see them in construction sites and that kind of thing.

So there are examples of those kind of regulations, less on where they operate, more on how they operate, so they can provide those services in your not typical commercial zone.

Yeah, and I guess to the point about residential, like I totally can see people doing neighborhood events where they invite a food truck uh to come set up.

Is that something they were?

I feel like they were already doing that before, and something that wouldn't be that much of a change for us now.

It required no change to our ordinance to recognize that food trucks food trucks can set up in residential areas.

The only mention we have of zoning in our licensure was simply with respect to fixed okay.

Thanks.

Council Marine.

On residential property, are we saying residential areas like uh food truck could pull up at a HOA pool pavilion or not something that I would do necessarily, maybe council member Dixon would do, but invite a food truck to come park in his driveway over here.

Theoretically, that is how the state law is written.

Interesting, and our license hasn't had anything addressing that particular issue yet.

Party at your house.

Okay, and then um one question I have is um for municipal property.

I know we allow food trucks to come to the parks and events.

Do we have any provision that would allow a existing this is a real life example?

There is an existing taco truck on campus corner who is on a private property, has a lease with the private property owner.

That private property property owner is not going to renew their lease at the end of this year.

And uh they would really like to stay on campus corner because they're also the only place that's open late night on campus corner.

They're very busy.

And I've thought of the city's lot because the guy the owner is asking about it.

The city's lot on ASP.

Is there a provision we've had we have where a the city would be able to lease a non-temporary?

I mean, anything's temporary in long scheme, but like a year-long lease of a food truck if we wanted to lease out some of that space on the sidewalk.

Or on Gray Street or wherever Street.

So um wondering how what if we've even I can't recall if we've gone down that road really for a not like a temporary event that's happening that night, but for like a year-long type situation.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.

A couple of things.

Um, first, I know we have uh adopted business plans uh for those parking lots, so we want to make sure that we're ready to take that on in compliance with whatever plan we have on in place for the use of that.

Uh, but the second part of that um is we don't have anything currently in our licensure that addresses that issue, and it is something I believe this law leaves us room to determine like right now.

What we're showing is what brings it into compliance, but there are um uh as allowed by the municipality or municipal property, but we may not specifically allow a long-term lease yet.

Right.

What it says is a municipality may develop a mobile food vendor metered parking pass for a fee that permits a mobile food vendor to operate from metered parking spaces for longer than the vendor would otherwise be permitted.

Which in Grey would both be and flow bird.

I'm sure we could program that into Flowbird, and maybe there's a rate specifically for that use.

Well, so that is one of the very specifically enumerated powers.

I'm just saying this.

My first sort of um food truck sort of experience was in Oxford anyway.

Oxford down where the university is located.

The issue is there are no fast food restaurants.

Everything closes at 6:30.

So there were spots on the street carved out with food trucks.

One here, one here, um, and here in certain distances.

And my understanding was those food truck vendors at least those spots.

My understanding is at least were very lucrative.

Um, and if you wanted food after hours, literally, if you were a student, the only place for you to go if you have something in your dorm was to want these food trucks.

So that is possible.

I just I suspect I guess it would depend upon how you went about, so to speak.

There's so much available here.

It's probably not as lucrative as it might be someplace else.

I mean, my experience in a dorm is we order pizza.

Um delivered to us.

You're not I mean, maybe if there were some really popular food truck that got a spot over bus somewhere on campus.

That's the example I'm talking about.

Is an existing one that's in a parking lot that's privately owned.

And uh they've been told by that property owner that they're not gonna renew their lease, and uh they would very much like to stay on campus corner because they are the only place that's open latent on campus corner, and they're very busy.

And so my only thought was well, we only own one piece of property down here, and it's that parking lot, so I don't know.

But they've got commercial aspect of it, which is not something that's unusual like a good reason.

CPTC may be a great place for the conversation through our initiative.

All the metered lots on campus corner are city parking.

Well, this private parking lot has become metered by the owner.

They have people that they have signs they put up.

There's an app, and they do have someone in a yellow vest that goes around and puts what looks like a ticket on people's cars.

And I've had to tell people that it's not an actual ticket, they can't ticket you, but they can tell you because it's a private lot.

So if they put that on your car, it's a warning that you need to pay this app or they're gonna tell you.

But this is not a municipal court citation for parking violation, but it's confusing, I would say to people.

Most people don't know that it's a paid parking and never has been before, and now it is, but it's an app, and it's private and not the city.

So that's so now it's easier to do.

It's an interesting situation that's going on over there.

I've side of that line, it's uh public parking and that is metered, so they could apply to be on the street if they wanted to be.

Potentially, yeah.

We don't currently have that in place, but and and as you'll see, this law is mostly what municipalities may not do, but the short list of may do does include we could allow that.

Yes, I believe so.

Okay, so here is the definition of mobile food establishment.

Um just like it looks food and beverages, movable vehicle um approved by the department of transportation, and it then it has the uh limits of staying in one place for no more than 12 hours at a time.

Our language was extremely similar, so I simply tweaked it to make it identical, and then we're avoiding any issue of conflict.

Um, and then they may not stay at one physical address more than 14 days when on a private property with permission.

That's state law.

We don't have anything specific to enforce, but technically they would be violating state law if they did not do that.

Here are other definitions.

Uh push cart, just like it sounds, it's uh you know, manually pushed.

Retail food simply means pre-packaged, there's slightly different uh health code reasons for that.

Mobile food vendor is the term that you'll see in our licensing ordinance in order to follow this state law and stay consistent with it, and it includes all of these uh three other things we just talked about, and then of course, food vending vehicle is going to refer to all those things as well.

Uh but those are also new definitions that were found in an amended provision at this bill.

Okay, so here's the May list.

We can restrict uh certain levels of noise within 23 feet, but we can um restrict um parking operations or require a special permit.

Uh they cannot uh inhibit ingress or egress.

This is a basic safety thing.

Um, we're allowed to pass provisions consistent with this act that otherwise address public health and safety.

So our police power is still intact there.

Uh, we can develop parking permits, we can investigate food foodborne illness or report violations to the state.

Uh so all of these things to help us help the state enforce this act, essentially.

Right here, we can take up the parking screen.

Uh, here's the may not.

Uh the the first is obvious.

When they're licensed by the state and they've shown us that they're licensed by the state, we need to let them operate as long as they're also providing uh compliance with our provisions that aren't inconsistent with the state law.

And then there's this list that's pretty much identical for the State Health Department and for municipalities, which says this is what this act says you cannot do.

As I mentioned before, they need to have permission of a property owner, but we can't tell them what that permission looks like.

We can't require them to have a particular kind of contract or agreement.

We cannot require them to stay in constant motion.

That's obviously unsafe anyway.

We don't require that.

We allow them to make a stop to make it sale and then to move on unless, of course, they have made arrangements with the private property owner.

What we've talked about with getting a longer use of a metered parking, that could be another alternative there.

We cannot limit the number of licenses issued.

We can't require security measures such as fingerprinting.

We can't ask for additional surety obligations or bonds unless they are operating on municipal property or at a municipal event.

And I have added language in here to make it very clear that they need to provide us additional insured insurance when that happens.

And then we can't require multiple health inspections or anything special unless we are investigating foodborne illness.

Councilmore Grant.

I was gonna say, can private property owners ask about insurance if they're doing their own events and that would be a property right, yes.

They would this doesn't specifically prohibit a private property owner from what it may put in its agreement allowing someone to place.

So I believe they would.

Okay, thank you.

So here is the other um bill that passed that it's not State Health Department.

This is specific to the state fire marshal, but it's related in food trucks, uh, mobile food vendors, mobile food preparation vehicles.

We're talking about food trucks here with all of it.

But essentially, uh effective November 1st, which is also the effective date of the health department regulation.

Uh these vehicles are subject pretty much exclusively to state fire marshal compliance for those safety measures.

They will be solely responsible for renewal inspection of the vehicles.

And so part of our amendments to our licensure is to make it clear that what they are providing us for a vehicle instead of an inspection would be proof that they've gotten state fire marshal inspection approval within the last year.

And we can still enforce our permits as they're set up.

We really didn't have to change much.

We just need to make sure that our code is staying consistent with the law.

Um and finally, there is some preemptive language in this particular bill that says no one, um, and especially municipalities can enact or enforce any fire lefty fire or life safety code regulation ordinance that is more than what they've already done, essentially.

Unless we are within a county with a population of more than 400,000 at the last federal census, and Cleveland County is just above three at the last one.

So this essentially only allows Tulsa and Oklahoma counties to uh pass different codes.

23 foot seconds.

So arbitrary.

We haven't had to change much.

Uh what we had was mostly in line.

There's a lot of wording changes and some additions.

We have um extended our licensure categories to those definitions that are now found in the health department, just so there's consistently there.

Uh we have the additional insured provisions.

We also have new park food vendor permits.

You'll see that it's added in here in red.

We we just left it in a red line format because some had commented before that that made it easier for you to see.

Uh, but essentially, when they're in a park for an event that we're not already sponsoring, we want to have a heads up for that so that they can come back and show us their additional insured coverage.

And our park food vendor permit allows us to monitor that better and sets up a process.

It includes a nominal fee for that, um, just essentially to cover what legwork we uh felt was necessary.

Um the other change that we have in the structure of our food establishment license is that we now have a temporary annual permits for both the fixed and the mobile categories.

Uh before mobile food vendors were only temporary permits, all uh either one day, 30 day, or 180 days with varying fees.

So now that uh to comply with the state law, we've created an annual permit to match that state process.

Um we had to suggest some adjustments to the fees.

Uh House Bill 1076 says specifically that we cannot charge uh a licensure fee that does more than cover the admin costs.

I mean, you've dealt with licensure fees, so you know this we're always monitoring, but we had this anomaly where the uh temporary fee was actually higher than the annual fee, and that was probably because of the difference of when they were passed and the different and you know, mobile only being temporary.

Um but in order to have facial consistency, what I've suggested in this draft is that we lower the temporary fee.

But as I understand it, um there will be discussion coming up with council on all of the licensure fees.

So this is really a placeholder measure, just so that we can demonstrate facial compliance with not charging more for one than the other and making it clear that it's only covering admin cost.

Um but honestly, um it's probably time to discuss raising um the the $50 fee if it's been in place as long as I think it has anyway.

So all of these might be monitored.

Um at the last page of your red line copy, you'll see the fees set out.

The annual is 50, and uh the one day is suggested at 20, which it already is, the 30 day at 30, the 180 day at 40.

Now we have a placeholder in here for renewals, uh, because as you'll see in our code, there are references to renewals.

Um having discussed now what that process is, uh we've confirmed that it the renewal process is really all the same amount of work for the office as the initial intake.

Uh so what we need to change that $10 there, and I didn't get it done in this draft, I'm sorry, but what it will essentially say is a renewal will be the same as the original fee.

And of course, annual is always that way.

Um, and then you can see park food vendor is now on the list uh with the nominal $10 fee.

Plus module.

What are the cost suggestions or the fee suggestions, like from 50 to 100 or 50 to 75?

Um right now it's just the numbers you see in there, except for the renewal fee, should be the same as the original permit.

Uh the 30 day was previously 50, and the 180 day was previously 250, which is a significant amount above the annual fee, uh, which seemed to cover essentially the same thing, and that indicates to me all of them probably need some adjustment, but as a placeholder to ensure that we're complying with that administrative cost only requirement.

This is what we should do until you have that more global discussion about all of them.

Okay, but it's a discussion we can continue to have here too if you want to.

What is the state charging for their penit?

I'm sorry, I didn't get that information, but I can.

Yeah, let's say like on that.

Um I don't know what all it would take administratively for us to keep track of all that, but I mean if people are business being having to pay a permit to the state, and if it depending on what it is, and to the city, I mean, if we can do if we can just recruit whatever it costs for us to do it, you know.

That'd be okay, but it does not sound like too userous a task on our part, verifying we've already been licensed by the state.

So our responsibilities would reduce multiple layers of government to for permission to be.

The costs of this could come back in a Baca or finance committee we talked about.

Yes, yes, and my understanding is that that all licensure fees are really on the table for future discussion, and and these should definitely be a part of that.

Um, you'll remember now we have annual mobile and fixed.

So that $50 annual fee has always applied to fixed restaurant locations, which considering uh that um you know, some inspections will be moving to state entities.

It could be that we really are incurring more administrative costs on those annual fixed um licensure requests.

So it could be that you'll discuss maybe splitting that annual into fixed versus mobile and just however you want to handle it.

But I think there's a lot of room for you to have those discussions for sure.

And what I mean we can get into it more in committee, I suppose, but like what is fixed is that if someone's there for more than a year, or they are the temporary still, and if I own a brick and mortar business, and I'm paying the fixed arate, and then this temporary business is paying less amount, even though they're been there more than a year, so yeah, that's some stuff we might get into that, I suppose.

And I know on the fixed things, the fire department does annual inspections or biennial inspections on all of our commercial buildings just to make sure they understand what it looks like on the inside if they have to go in there in the dark or when it's full of smoke.

Definitely a different scenario than what you'd face if we had an emergency at a mobile vendor.

So they they may not be equal, but it's it's definitely for cause.

Yeah.

Well, so this is the timeline.

If we get the ordinance on your September meetings, then it will have more than the 30 days to become effective on the same date as the state law on November 1st.

Uh so that would be the plan.

In the meantime, you know, we run our license through City View now.

Um, we have some forms that would probably require us planning some updates now that um one example is now that mobile food vendors must be inspected by the state fire marshal, uh, we need to make sure our form demonstrates us confirming that compliance and not implying that we've done an inspection.

Uh we need to look, we need to make sure that it's clear they're responsible for that.

So little changes that we'll be discussing with staff.

Um, but other than a future discussion of fees, um, this is how we intended to take it forward for now, essentially for the compliance.

Um but if you wanted to have more discussion about the parking idea, um that's something we could do as well.

And I will find out the fees from for the state.

Have that information.

Yeah, how about definitely love to look into potentially letting a food truck rent a public parking spot metered or not?

Um I just think it would be nice to have some options in the area, and uh being in the downtown area, people do get sick.

Um, I hate to say it, but like the things that are openly, and we have visiting bands and artists that are up late who would love options.

Um so yeah, uh Councilman.

I said I just see a couple of things and this new direction that could make Norman a little bit more appealing to food trucks if we are going to do like a parking lot or something with flowboard or something along those lines, and we have uh noise ordinance that we need to be prepared of.

If you get four or five food trucks with generators, that gets pretty loud no matter where you put it.

So um, if we were able to put in power in dedicated areas that they could run off of and not necessarily waste, just power to keep them from having to run off the generators, that may be something with permitting or something, you know, some mechanism there that makes it a little bit more enticing for them to come to Norman.

Yeah.

Um the one on campus corner, that parking lot is a square, and the food truck is in the corner where it's striped off where there's no parking spaces, and I think it overlaps into one parking space.

But we're prior to the food truck there, like motorcycles would park there sometimes and stuff.

But it was in the corner where you couldn't park a car.

So it was really, I always just thought it was kind of a wasted space because it was couldn't do anything with it.

And so our Gray Street parking lot has four corners, uh, two of which have the striped on them.

Our ass street parking lot has that same thing.

So those corners of square rectangle parking lots that can't be used for spots, that could be an opportunity to get some, and the guy that owns that place is like I pay my rents on time every month in full, and you know, uh, so if we've got people that might be willing to if we could generate more revenue off our parking lots than just the parking lot, especially if it's an incubator of a corner that we can't use for parking spots.

So um, so I'd like for us to definitely find uh I don't know if we need to hold this up to come in compliance with state law to do that, but having a more in-depth discussion about food trucks and the ability to use public uh city-owned parking parking lots for leasing out um those potentially.

Um I yeah, interested in move in exploring that further too, and then talking about the fees and everything as well.

In addition to power, you're just having some water hookups out there, just make it as easy as possible.

Yes, uh, not quite RVs, but it's worth right.

I'll just say I have no connection to that taco truck.

I just work across the street and I've observed how busy they are, and he knows who I am, and he's he was like, Hey, I'm not gonna be able to ruin my lease.

What am I gonna do?

And I'd like to stay here.

So um, so uh council Mergrant.

Uh I was thinking about entertainment overlay districts and food trucks noise, all that stuff.

Uh I guess this is a question for PW whenever we do get into the weeds.

But uh power versus generator, like were we doing gray?

We're gonna I don't think you have to do a whole bunch to do two-way main, but um kind of curious what the inventory would is on potential places where people could plug in.

And also, is it the infrastructure that is actually compatible with what a food truck needs to run?

Yeah, is it one ten or two twenty?

I don't know, but we will find out um with council consensus, we would advance the ordinance amendments for first reading consideration, and that just puts our fire department in a comfortable place knowing they are now compliant and they know what they are responsible for and what we are no longer responsible for, and then yeah, we'll pick off the other elements one at a time, and and uh there are opportunities before us.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd say can uh we could fit on either CPTC or Bacca.

We can talk about it tomorrow morning.

Yes, go ahead.

Committee chairs are meeting tomorrow morning to talk about retreat and excellent thing, but uh yeah, so we can okay.

Any other comments or from anybody?

Any further direction from staff that you need or I think I have good direction.

I thought I will ask one question.

We're talking about the parking lots.

Did you want us to look into metered parking spaces on the street?

Yes, especially parallel ones.

Yeah, I mean it seemed to include would make sense to include that since we allow for the street trees, even though we haven't seen much interest in doing the street or anything, but yeah, um, I haven't seen yet if the new steak and oyster restaurant is going to keep that out front.

Well, we were gonna wear my balls to ensure it in fire was so but uh yeah, I would say that's we should definitely include that in the discussion.

Any yeah, any publicly owned parking uh space that we're not using for anything else.

Right, the empty lot across the street that we don't have anything on.

Okay, I wanted to be sure because I see those as distinct conversation because of the street and sidewalk adjacentness with the parking space versus the parking lot, which is almost like a lease situation.

Yeah, I see the parking lot being easier to do than just the street parking space, but I think we can talk about both of them.

I actually see more viability with parallel on-street spaces.

Oh, yeah, because if you think you get four or five of these in a row, create kind of a food truck alley almost.

Um, but really easy to do, yeah.

Thinking Santa Fe.

I know, right there.

Yeah, next to Scratch, there's every major city with a big park or something.

You just make sure food trucks are lined up for you.

If it wasn't uh if it wouldn't block the whole front of the deli, I think the owner of deli would be trying to put the that food truck right in front of the boat, right in those two sparkling parking pedals in front of the book.

And we'll find out who owns that vacant lot across from scratch.

Uh it's owned by Mango.

Which one?

The one next to Mango says parking for Mango only.

I think church owns the one that you're talking about.

To west of Scratch.

And I'm just thinking, you know, Santa Fe's just got them on both sides.

It's just the first example that popped my head, but there's a lot of opportunities like that.

So okay.

Any other comments, questions?

Anybody?

All right.

Okay, very good.

Thank you very much.

This meeting is adjourned.