NEDERLAND, Texas — The Nederland City Council voted to create a new committee that could make it easier for food trucks to set up shop in the city.
Right now regulations are tight and food trucks need special permits if they want to serve customers. Even then the permits are only issued for special events.
The new committee will include city leaders as well as restaurant and food truck owners.
12News spoke to one food truck owner who has been spearheading this movement.
Keith Bass, owner of food truck The Dude's Foods, hopes this could allow owners like him to set up anywhere in Nederland without having to be invited by another business.
"This committee is going to to sit down and have a more formal conversation with the restaurant owners, citizens of Nederland and the food truck owners to just see where everybody's coming from," said Bass.
Now food truck owners like Bass are hoping this will make serving food in their hometown easier.
"The reason why we bought this back up is because we wanted to lift the special events clause that's in there," said Bass.
City Manager Chris Duque told 12News that right now food trucks can only serve at businesses where they've been invited.
"We define that as the event organized and permitted by the business establishment for promotion or advertisement, in which the setup is completely on private property," said Duque.
The city still needs to fill eight positions on the committee. The members will work on making recommendations to amend the city's existing food truck regulations.
"We're trying to be open about this process. I think their are a lot of sides to the discussion and we want to get that input," said Duque.
Previously 12news spoke with Remi Bryan, the owner of La Suprema in Nederland. He said new regulations could hurt brick and mortar restaurants in the city.
"It's hard to make anything to stay in business, much less with competition from people that aren't paying what I pay," Bryan previously said.
Bass says that food truck owners just want a piece of the pie.
"We're not trying to take over or put any business out. We just want to be able to serve food the same way they do, just on a smaller scale," said Bass.
Duque says he plans to have the committee applications available to those interested by Wednesday and hopes the committee can present recommendations by October.