On May 1, Mayor Mitch Landrieu vetoed New Orleans City Council's passing of council vice president Stacy Head's food truck ordinance, a pilot plan package at that would've updated the city's decades-old mobile vendor laws. Head responded with a compromise plan — to at least open 75 mobile vendor permits in the interim while drafting a Landrieu-approved plan.

Before Landrieu's annual State of the City address this afternoon, Head told Gambit's Kevin Allman that the legislation now is "largely in the administration’s court."

"It’s horribly disappointing," she said. "With the issues the city has before us, the violent crime that is strangling our city, the quality of life issues left unresolved on a daily basis, the crumbling infrastructure — for this to have taken such of my energy and time, it’s disappointing."

Head asks that Landrieu "stay true to his word and support food trucks and increase the number by 75 in this interim while he drafts this legislation."

"We just need to know what he wants. For 10 months we hadn’t heard that," she said. "So I wrote a letter, I told them verbally, I told them in a statement and I told them on the dais, that if they can present some kind of package to us, maybe we can get the ball rolling."

On May 16, City Council will address Landrieu's veto, though Head said she doesn't know whether she'll have the votes to override it.

"I’m very pragmatic, and I know there are practical challenges to that," she said, "which is why I've given the council and the mayor two options: We can keep the status quo, which is clearly what the mayor wants, over the reforms I passed."

New Orleans City Council did not take action on Mayor Mitch Landrieu's veto of the re-drafted food truck ordinance, originally passed in council last month. City Council will address the issue at its May 16 meeting, where it could overturn the veto.

Meanwhile, Stacy Head introduced a new, stripped-down measure which would would increase available permits of all mobile food vendors. "While the intention is to rewrite the entirety," the ordinance reads," the new measure — just one part of the larger ordinance — will provide "short-term relief." The ordinance originally only applied to food truck vendors, but Landrieu's veto letter said he wanted the bill to include "itinerant vendors, including those governing frozen seafood, vegetable and fruit," as well as food trucks. Council will hear the measure May 16, should Landrieu's veto stand.

Read Head's full letter below:

I am disappointed that the mayor has vetoed the food truck ordinance, but I await his suggested improvements as he promised he would provide in his veto statement. I wish to thank those in the administration, my colleagues, neighborhood groups, restaurateurs, the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition, and the Louisiana Restaurant Association for their hard work over the past 10 months to draft legislation upon which we could all agree. I believe the end result was a thoughtful compromise position that supported the regulated growth of the food truck industry and I do not agree with the rationale for the veto. Nevertheless, considering the practical difficulties of a veto override, I have today introduced an ordinance that concedes to the mayor's desire to maintain the status quo while a complete re-write of the law is accomplished, but allows for an additional 75 itinerant vendors (with no distinction between food trucks, seafood vendors, fruit vendors or the like). While I believe the series of amendments that the council passed was preferable, in a pragmatic effort to move forward, I have submitted this alternative.

Following last month's passage of a long-brewing ordinance redrafting the city's decades-old mobile vending laws, Mayor Mitch Landrieu has vetoed it, citing fears that it violates the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. "It would be unwise to sign this ordinance into law in its current form when it appears certain that it will be invalidated by the court," Landrieu wrote in his formal letter to clerk of council Peggy Lewis.

Landrieu wrote that the ordinance's supporters even have expressed its unconstitutionality including its author, City Council president Stacy Head, who voted in its favor yet also spoke against several last-minute amendments at last month's council meeting. As written, the ordinance would open 75 additional food truck permits, increase the amount of time food trucks can operate (from a previous 45 minute rule), require trucks to operate within 300 feet of a restroom, and allow trucks to operate 200 feet from brick-and-mortar restaurants — that distance was disputed from its originally proposed 50 feet, to 100 feet, then Jackie Clarkson's proposed 300 feet, to a compromise of 200 feet.

The ordinance can be reintroduced in City Council, where five votes could overturn Landrieu's veto. Here is Landrieu's veto letter:

Dear Madam Clerk:

I hereby return Ordinance M.C.S. 025291 (Calendar Number 29,497) disapproved for the following reasons:

Both the author of the ordinance and its principal proponent have publicly stated their belief that elements of the adopted ordinance as amended may be unconstitutional.

Further, the City Attorney has raised Equal Protection concerns and opined that this ordinance would not withstand a legal challenge. It would be unwise to sign this ordinance into law in its current form when it appears certain that it will be invalidated by the court.

My veto notwithstanding, I strongly support Councilmember At-Large Head and the City Council’s efforts to update the City Code regulations pertaining to itinerant vendors, including those governing frozen seafood, vegetable and fruit, and food trucks.

Accordingly, I have directed my staff to work with the Council to immediately address this issue and develop changes which will result in mobile food vending laws which are legal, fair, enforceable and best serve the industry and the people of New Orleans.

Yours very truly,

Mitchell J. Landrieu
Mayor