The move to invite food trucks once weekly into Fat City stalled Wednesday at the Jefferson Parish Council. The council cancelled a resolution sanctioning the visits, and Councilwoman Cynthia Lee-Sheng said afterward she wants to rewrite her measure to focus on an "event" such as a food-truck rally in Metairie's former nightlife district, instead of letting individual trucks pair...
The move to invite food trucks once weekly into Fat City stalled Wednesday at the Jefferson Parish Council. The council cancelled a resolution sanctioning the visits, and Councilwoman Cynthia Lee-Sheng said afterward she wants to rewrite her measure to focus on an "event" such as a food-truck rally in Metairie's former nightlife district, instead of letting individual trucks pair up every Tuesday with private property owners.
The resolution would have let rolling restaurants operate in Fat City provided that each reach an agreement with a property owner willing to host and allow use of the owner's building restrooms. But a NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune story about the proposal stirred up some discussion in the community, Lee-Sheng said, prompting her to pull it down and rework it in the coming weeks.
Lee-Sheng said she now is considering an assembly of food trucks in a single Fat City location, perhaps monthly, with a truck trailer bearing rented restrooms for all to use. "It'll be more successful in one area," she said. "It'll be more of an event."
The council all but banned food trucks with tough restrictions throughout unincorporated Jefferson Parish in 2007, after seeing an influx of the vendors arrive to feed Hurricane Katrina relief and rebuilding workers. Lee-Sheng generally proposes exempting Fat City from the 2007 law, in hopes of attracting pedestrians and ultimately transforming the area into a vibrant, hip mix of residential and commercial property.