Pressure to reform Oakland’s antiquated mobile vending ordinance is increasing as the issue garners publicity and activists anticipate the revision of a proposal rejected by the City Council in May. 

Elizabeth August said it’s about time.

“We need public pressure to make this happen,” she said.

A mobile food vendor herself, August is spearheading the reform effort on behalf of Oakland vendors. “I got involved in the politics and I’ve now found myself in the middle of this mess.”

It’s not surprising that August has become a leading force in Oakland’s mobile vending community: She’s uniquely qualified for the task. 

Twenty years into a career helping small businesses get started, August considers herself something of a “born entrepreneur,” always keeping busy with side projects.

“I’m bored easily so I get involved in stuff,” she said.

Community participation also comes naturally to her.

“I was raised that way and that’s how I’m raising my daughter,” she said. So it’s not surprising that when her husband was laid off - construction jobs evaporated about three years ago - she began watching the trend in mobile food. August then initiated a project that would ultimately position her at the forefront of the movement to reform Oakland’s ossified mobile vending laws. 

“I helped a dear friend in Portland get her (mobile food) business together through my consulting business,” she explained. The restaurant business was familiar to August, too, since she worked in the industry for many years while in school. 

 “We had to get my husband to work,” she said. “So I found an old hot dog cart on Craigslist. I knew it was something my husband could fix up, and I realized it would be a pretty small investment to get it going. We would eventually buy a truck, fix it and have a mobile food business.” 

That was the plan, but then August discovered the politics. She and her husband spiffed up the old hot dog cart, christened their business “Guerilla Grub” and availed themselves of all requisite permits - only to learn that strict regulations would severely limit their operation. 

The Guerilla Grub cart worked street fairs and private events, but August had plans to equip an old postal truck for mobile food vending. Oakland’s restrictive mobile vending ordinance, however, made it senseless for her to invest in the truck.

“The truck isn’t built because we can’t work in Oakland,” she said

But August is not one to accept the status quo, so she began to advocate for change. She founded Oakland Mobile Food Group - OMFG - to organize mobile vendors and push for vending ordinance reform. 

“It’s a collective of vendors who come together to network their resources in event planning and to work together in getting the ordinance expanded in Oakland,” she said. "We would love to bring every Oakland vendor in." The group includes Go Streatery, Fist of Flour, The Grilled Cheese Guy, El TacoBike, Butterfat Bakery, Sue’s Sasy Pies, 51^st State and Boffo Cart.

Oakland’s 2001 mobile vending ordinance prohibits food trucks from selling outside of a designated zone in East Oakland. Trucks are permitted to operate on private property with authorization and at organized street fairs with a city-issued permit. 

The Oakland City Council asked CEDA - the Community and Economic Development Agency - to recommend changes to the mobile vending ordinance more than two years ago. CEDA eventually produced a proposal that was presented to the City Council in May, but the Oakland Restaurant Association and the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce fought it off with help from Councilwoman Desley Brooks and Council President Larry Reid, who both represent East Oakland. Brooks and Reid cited concerns over safety, drugs and prostitution in their districts. 

For August, the proposal was unrealistic.

“It was too much too soon,” she said. “I think we need to do this sustainably. We want the ordinance expanded. We want trucks allowed on city streets in certain areas for certain hours. We want to expand past Fruitvale.” But first, she wants permits for “pods,” she said - clusters of vendors in a designated area at a set time.  

The “pod” concept is modeled after San Francisco’s Off the Grid - a project that allowed groups of vendors to sell at city parks. It was so successful that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors rewrote the city’s mobile vending ordinance in 2010, opening every neighborhood to vendors and transferring permitting authority from the police to the Department of Public Works.

August said she wants Oakland to follow this model.

“My proposal is to allow permits for Oakland organizers, like myself, who will organize pods in certain areas designated by the city,” she said. “I want a pilot that shows how pods will work, then we can add sites for trucks. If we start with pods, it’s a much more manageable way to see how it’s working.”

This is because the process for organizing a pod is very similar to the process currently used for special events, such as Eat Real or First Fridays, August explained. 

“One organizer is a liaison with the vendors; they make sure people are permitted and present all documentation to the city.”

OMFG gathered more than 600 signatures on a petition at the Eat Real Festival and Oktoberfest. The petition will be put on the OMFG website for signing before the end of the month. It will then be presented to the City Council. 

August was informed that CEDA is revising the rejected proposal and will bring it to the City council for its November meeting, but she said she’s wary. “We were told we’d have a revised proposal to look at by end of September and we don’t have it yet."

Despite doubts, she expects to see progress, "because the press has helped to expose what’s going on.

“The City Council is being made to look a bit foolish because other surrounding cities have already capitalized on this (mobile food) trend,” August said. “You can bank on there being a big turnout at the City Council meeting."

People are fed up with the city’s stagnation on the issue, August said., and they want answers.

“Everyone wants to know why. It’s only the ORA and the Chamber of Commerce that show up in opposition, and I want to know why they have that much power and influence. I have not received a valid answer from anyone.” 

August noted that several Oakland restaurant owners have signed her petition, and said that she has yet to see a restaurateur demonstrate opposition.

“I want this ordinance expanded or I want a legal explanation as to why it’s not being expanded,” she said, “The threat of me selling drugs and prostitutes from my cupcake tuck is not a valid explanation.”