Licensing and Consumer Affairs Department inspectors will soon be dropping by St. John's mobile food-vending vans and stands, and it won't be just to order pates. They'll be asking the owners if they pack up and move from their selling sites at night, as their permits require them to do.
LCA Commissioner Andrew Rutnik said he would, as promised at an April public hearing, have inspectors make the rounds to all food sellers operating from vans and stands. Ensuring that mobile vendors are, indeed, mobile — or else requiring them to obtain licenses as operators of permanent establishments — is a territorywide campaign, he said.
"We're still moving forward with the educational part of our enforcement," Rutnik said on Wednesday. "Later this week" on St. John, he said, "we plan to go around and ask them what they plan to do individually."
Following up on a series of public hearings introducing mobile vendors to a multi-agency compliance team, LCA agents have taken photographs of nearly 600 mobile food vendors on St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. Rutnik said the pictures will be used to document each business, its location and its operating conditions. The photos will provide evidence as to which businesses are mobile and which are stationary, he said.
The commissioner recently attended a meeting of a newly formed mobile food vendors association on St. Thomas, where he heard some of the group's plans. He called the association an example of the positive results that can come from cooperation between government and small business operators. "We are very encouraged" by its formation, he said.
A number of Cruz Bay mobile vendor permit holders have signaled their willingness to comply with regulations. Some have said they would make the structural modifications and seek the necessary licenses to upgrade their businesses to restaurants and bars.
Licensing officials say even small mobile stands can qualify for permanent status by installing hot and cold running water, electricity and restroom facilities. "We're not trying to turn them into Caneel Bay," Rutnik said.
However, other vendors have said they will fight the regulations because they've done business in a given location for years without being challenged. One vendor says the government is imposing on his right to run a business on his private property.
Rutnik said he will not penalize any business owners who can show that they are in the process of complying with regulations. He emphasized that his agency does not want to put mobile food vendors out of business when collectively they do about a million dollars worth of sales a year.
