Petition for municipal street food vendor permits for businesses offering healthy mobile food options

Ontarians have a lot of options when it comes to street food. Poutine with bacon, or poutine with extra cheese? Italian sausage, or Polish sausage? Coke, or Pepsi?

Unfortunately, if you care about your health and don’t want to eat cooked-from-frozen processed foods, you’re out of luck on the streets of Ontario. Although Toronto’s heavily regulated ‘à la Carte’ program launched in 2008, only six vendors have survived the first two years of the program, and there’s no telling what the end result will be for the vendors’ bottom line, or street food in general.

Vancouver’s ‘2010 Street Food Experiment’ is in its second year, with vendor permit lottery winners “The Roaming Dragon” leading the charge, offering healthy pan-Asian inspired street food. The people of Vancouver are satisfying their voracious hunger for healthy, accessible street food in a way that Ontarians can only dream of. Some Ontario municipalities have placed moratoria on their street vendor permits, with chip trucks and hot dog carts holding the lion’s share of existing permits, and justifiably not wanting to give them up to new businesses. Other municipalities simply don’t offer street food permits for prospective vendors at all.

Help persuade local and provincial lawmakers to revise current restrictive vending ordinances that hinder the flourishing of street food culture, and to implement a regulatory system that encourages culinary entrepreneurship and accessible food options.

Help jump start a thriving urban street food scene that brings casual, affordable, delicious food options to our streets and promotes our cities as food culture destinations. Spread the word about the integral role street vendors could play in rejuvenating the life and economy of Ontario municipalities through the creation of viable business opportunities and jobs for Ontarians.