Food truck owners urge City Council to axe expanded business curfew they approved

Food truck vendors and other late-night business owners rallied Thursday against a dramatically expanded business curfew that would mandate they close by 11 p.m. in wide swaths of Northwest Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, and Kensington.

Many of the food trucks in the affected neighborhoods operate overnight, selling affordable food to late-night shift workers and early-morning commuters, including nurses, firefighters, and police officers.

The truck owners, many of whom banded together in the spring through the newly formed Latino Food Truck Association, say the shortened hours would cost them thousands of dollars a week and force them to lay off workers.

“Right now, everything has been lost,” chef and food truck owner José Luis said through tears in front of his Alta Cocina truck in Juniata Park. “I feel that all the blame is falling on the little restaurant owners.”

Luis, 52, typically sold steaming plates of mofongo and picadera from 1 p.m. to 1 a.m., with a crush of business in the last four hours. But now, fearful of racking up expensive citations, he has started closing the truck at 10 p.m. He said he previously employed five people, and now employs only two.

An initial business curfew, regulating some late-night businesses in parts of Kensington, was signed into law in April 2024. Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, who introduced the bill, pitched it as a way to increase safety and crack down on nuisance businesses, like 24/7 unlicensed smoke shops. An expanded version of that curfew, covering more of North Philadelphia and Kensington, was signed by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker in August.

Lozada did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

» READ MORE: ‘What do food trucks have to do with crime?’ North Philly vendors say new curfew enforcement may wipe them out.

The food truck vendors are rallying against an even broader curfew, passed in June but not yet signed into law, that they say will hit more people even harder. They have partnered with the libertarian law firm Institute for Justice, which calculated that the new curfew would expand existing curfew coverage by 500%. A map by the group shows much of the city would fall under the new curfew.

Council approved the bill that would enact further curfews on businesses — covering those in the 7th and 8th Council Districts, as well as parts of the 1st — and sent it to Parker’s desk in June. The new bill also would double fines for violations, from $500 to $1,000.

Because lawmakers passed the measure just before adjourning for summer recess, the mayor has until the week they reconvene in September to sign it into law, veto it, or let it become law without her signature. If Parker takes no action before Sept. 11, the first day of the fall legislative session, Council would have the opportunity to rescind the bill, something that happens rarely. If Council also takes no action, it would become law automatically.

The Institute for Justice and the food truck owners are campaigning for City Council to rescind the bill.

Lozada has said that the curfews should not overly affect food trucks, because city rules allow most mobile vendors to operate only between 7 a.m. and midnight anyway. In practice, there has been lax enforcement of those rules and most vendors operated overnight with no problem, vendors said.

“Every single one of them had been breaking the law for a long time,” Lozada told The Inquirer in May.

The Latino Food Truck Association, which has 50 members, has proposed opening a late-night food truck park in North Philadelphia where vendors could gather in the same lot. So far there has been no movement on that proposal.

“The community was not properly consulted when this legislation was adopted,” Jennifer McDonald, director of the Institute for Justice’s Cities Work initiative, said at a news conference Thursday. “There are very real health and safety and quality-of-life concerns in North Philly. … A blanket curfew over much of North Philadelphia isn’t the answer to that.”

The curfew does not apply to restaurants with liquor licenses, gas stations, or drive-through-only shops, but other business owners fear they also will be swept up in its consequences.

Mitesh Patel, the owner of Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy in Kensington, said his business operates from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but remains open for hospice patients throughout the night.

“There’s a gray area. Technically, we’re working, we’re open for business,” Patel said. “Would we get fined?”

Staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.