A battle has been raging right in front of my work building on the Miracle Mile of Wilshire Boulevard for the better part of this year. It is a battle between the food trucks that park along the street in front of the high-rise offices, and the restaurant owners and landlords that have brick and mortar businesses at the same location.
A little background: about this same time last year and for the six years prior to that that I've worked here, there was one lone food truck that made a regular stop in front of the Museum Square on Wilshire. It was what I would call a "traditional" food truck - lovingly referred to as the "roach coach." It served a wide array of sandwiches and mexican food - it seemed to do all right, but nothing crazy.
Then a couple of things happened. This is information I've gleaned from the food truck owners themselves. First, the economic downturn caused a lot of film and TV production to shut down. Lots of food trucks that had formerly serviced the entertainment industry were left in a lurch. As a result, these trucks began to search for alternative methods of staying in business, which included serving food to the general public. Somebody figured out that there were large office buildings on the Miracle Mile that had insufficient restaurant options for lunch. People were begging for more lunch options than the handful that were within walking distance. Thus, supply met demand, and an explosion of food trucks appeared outside the office buildings.
Now these food trucks were not the typical "roach-coaches" people were used to. This was high-quality, gourmet food, that was delicious and relatively cheap. And more importantly, there was a huge amount of variety: Korean BBQ, Dim Sum Sushi, southern BBQ, hot dogs and hamburgers, ice cream, cupcakes, Italian, Jamaican, etc., etc.
It was a dream come true for the people who worked in the office buildings here. They flocked to the food trucks in droves. And the brick-and-mortar restaurants that everyone had grown tired of long ago but had previously been forced to eat at sat relatively empty. In about six-months, two restaurants had gone under (out of about 8 or so within walking distance). The remaining restaurant owners were screaming bloody murder to the city and to their landlords that these trucks were putting them out of business. The city, apparently sensing their property taxes were at risk, responded.
Like most city streets, the parking spots along the Miracle Mile are metered. The trucks had to park at the meters in order to be close to their customers. The meters, however, have a 2-hour time limit. The food trucks are large and take up every last bit of space (some a little more) in the spots. In order to be able to get a good parking spot, and insure that they could actually get IN the spot, the trucks arrived early and stayed well over the time limit. In response, the city started aggressively ticketing the trucks to get them to leave. However, the trucks were making more than enough money to cover the cost of the multiple parking tickets they received, so the truck owners ended up just treating the tickets as another cost of business.
Enter L.A. city council member Tom LaBonge.
LaBonge proposed two motions to the city council aimed at figuring out a way to prohibit food trucks from parking in public spaces for any length of time over 20 minutes.
At the same time, the landlords began to take matters into their own hands by allegedly paying employees to park at the metered spots, so the food trucks would be unable to do so. These cars were similarly parking beyond the stated limit; however, the parking tickets that the food trucks were subjected to around the clock had magically disappeared now that it was the landlords parking in the spaces. Below is a video purportedly of a landlord's employee feeding the parking meters for the employees' cars.
At times things have gotten tense. See the video below of a man getting assaulted by a landlord's employee because he saw he was being filmed.
In the latest development, the majority of the food trucks have compromised and moved a 1/4 mile down the street. In return, the city seems to have backed off a little with the ticketing.
I personally love the food trucks, and based upon the business they do, so do most of the people who live and work around here. For years, there was just a handful of choices within walking distance. Now the possibilities are unlimited. Whatever happens, there's no going back to the way things were, now that people have had a "taste" of freedom. (Sorry).
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