I am glad the Chamber is looking into the issue.

The value of a downtown to have alot of activities in a compact area: “the more the merrier.” Pike Place Market is the ultimate example.

6th Avenue is another example. When Primo Grill first opened it ws pretty empty. Yet with each new restaurant, business for many generally increased.

I glanced at a few other Washington city codes on street vending in the Municipal Research and Service Center.” It does look like Tacoma has about the most restrictive code on street vending.

Some cities do not require permission for anyone. Kent only requires permission for abutting retail spaces. Tacoma requires permission from all business owners within 100 feet. Some codes look at how similar the products are that are being sold which seems more reasonale.

Tacoma’s insurance requirement of $500,000 is about the most of any city and should be reduced.

Another “challenge” is the County Health Department which pretty much ended snacks and wine being offered on art walk.

This issue walks — not drives — hand in hand with the previous bike lane thread. The “critical mass” of foot traffic, and the consistent flow of it, does not exist anywhere in downtown Tacoma to sustain both established brick-and-mortar businesses and street vendors. What needs to be established downtown first is an honest urbanization effort, de-emphasizing the automobile — if downtown residents had a real incentive to ditch their cars (or, perhaps a real dis-incentive to owning a car), then you’d get somewhere. As far as I can tell, Tacoma’s still an immensely car-friendly town, and it’ll be residents demanding local gov’t and business to accommodate such a lifestyle, not the reverse. If there were such a burgeoning demand, spontaneous open-air markets would be happening all over, without consideration for narrow sidewalks and insurance requirements. Just look at how illegal drugs are sold in Tacoma, and you’ll understand my point there. :)

As a related side note to earlier discussions – I think Jane Jacobs would have been urged Tacoma City Council to embrace sidewalk vendors – Tacoma needs more hotdogs.

I don’t think that solving all of our retail problems (i.e. “getting more people downtown”) is the catalyst for a viable street market.

in many ways this is the field of dreams, (build it and they will come). Farmer’s markets all over prove this point – nearly dead downtowns become alive for one Weds or Sat a week.

i think that street vending is a very good urban revitalization strategy – it is the experience shopping that we lack. a block full of vendors creates its own energy and makes the whole street much more accessible and friendly. drug dealers will move on when crowds of shoppers start roaming the streets or the vendors who set up booths and blankets start harassing them. its classic free market.

the problem is a mentality that instead of being an asset, street vendors are viewed as a liability, a potential nuisance, or worse, competition for brick and mortar businesses. instead, having a suitably dense urban area to make it work should be viewed as a strategic asset.

So we want street vendors. We ask for street vendors but I’m still waiting for the actual vendors to speak up. The concept of making the rules more relaxed to entice them assumes there’s a ready supply of folks willing to make their livelihood shoving a 250lb cart of brats out in weather. From a business model, I can’t see it being worth a person’s time to just sell on the nicer days.

I have to say ‘Yes’ to Derek’s last question. This sounds like a solution looking for a problem. If the market really had a need for street vendors, then there’d be vendors knocking at the doors asking for the permits.

I am in the process of opening up a hot dog joint / tavern up on 6th Ave. This space sprang from an idea to operate a street cart. The restrictions are indeed tough, but my change in direction happened due to the restriction on having bathrooms and water within 200 feet of your cart. This pretty much forces you into ‘renting’ a sidewalk space from a business with frontage, as well as access to their bathroom facilities. This is, of course, all dependent upon neighboring businesses ‘allowing’ you to operate. I just assume to rent my own space for my own use. I can operate a cart out of it when it’s up and going later on down the line. I agree with the ‘build it and they will come’ theory. Most carts built these days are designed to be towed, so its a matter of dropping off at a semi-permanent location and setting up. I think if the bathroom facilities restrictions were relaxed, it would open things up a bit more to allow more food street vending.

If there were more of just about anything fun and interesting downtown, including steet vendors, I’d go downtown more often. That would undoubtedly lead to me making more visits to sit-down restaurants/bars downtown as well. The idea that easing the permitting process for street vendors would suck up important city resources seems odd to me — that’s what city government is for.

While it’s almost certainly true that downtown would not be immediately inundated with requests for vendor permits, that’s not really the point — if somebody wants to set up a cart, it shouldn’t be that hard to do, and it would add to downtown life if they did.