Buffalo's Food Trucks React
Interviews conducted Tuesday after the Common Council passed the new Buffalo food truck ordinance. It is expected to be on the Mayor’s desk on Monday, and will hopefully be signed shortly thereafter.
Tag: Buffalo
Buffalo’s Food Trucks React
Interviews conducted Tuesday after the Common Council passed the new Buffalo food truck ordinance. It is expected to be on the Mayor’s desk on Monday, and will hopefully be signed shortly thereafter.
Leave Acropolis Alone
Is Acropolis a good or bad citizen of Elmwood Avenue?
Are we knee-jerkedly predisposed in Buffalo to discourage and punish success?
Do you live within earshot of one of the city’s busiest commercial districts because you treasure peace and quiet?
Acropolis on Elmwood, fresh off a recent renovation and expansion, is looking to further expand to the second floor. Some people in the neighborhood are opposing this – some reasonably, some with libelous outrage.
The city has already approved the work that Acropolis is doing – adding space to the second floor for small banquets and parties; it’s not a huge building. Yet some residents nearby are engaging in blood feud tactics to protest what they think will become a “nightclub atmosphere” in the miniscule second floor.
2 On Your Side attempted to reach those opposing the expansion but we were unable to track down a name or a group. There is a public meeting scheduled for Thursday night for both sides to voice their opinion to Buffalo Common Council member Michael LoCurto
Typical – ad hoc group makes stuff up, arbitrarily opposes private enterprise, refuses itself to be accountable to anyone. One opponent spoke with WKBW / Buffalo Business First:
“The expansion of a full bar at that location would have severe negative impacts on the surrounding residential neighborhood,“ said Lynda Schnekloth. “Including excessive noise, increased traffic, competition for limited parking spaces, safety concerns, property values.”
Isn’t that a good thing for a city – increased traffic and less parking? Doesn’t that mean we’re doing something right? And how will a soundproofed tiny banquet area increase noise or “safety concerns” any more than Cecelia’s next door, or Blue Monk across the street, or any of the other nearby bars or restaurants? What proof is there that a thriving Elmwood business district will adversely affect property values? Any more than, say, break-ins to cars and homes, underperforming schools, theft of architectural features? Let’s be real – if you want quiet and ample parking, you don’t live in the Elmwood Village. If you want a walkable, thriving, vibrant neighborhood that brings with it the headaches of living in a city environment, you do. It’s really that simple.
It’s like moving to the airport and complaining about the planes.
While Buffalo Rising has seen far more people in favor of the expansion, what critics now seem to be misunderstanding is the music. Acropolis is simply not a place for overly loud music. It’s a place where a DJ can play eclectic trendy music to cater to the bar. People can still have conversations over the music. This type of relaxed bistro lounge atmosphere with DJ is popular with young professionals and has been for some time. Right now, though, the City of Buffalo is holding his music license, so he is prohibited from playing music until the Common Council decides what it is going to do on January 24th.
Tsouflidis is reaching out to his critics, calling for an open community meeting, followed by a tour of the new upstairs space where the entire community can come out and learn more about the project and have a dialogue about any concerns that they may have. It will be critical for supporters of the expansion to also attend this meeting or contact Delaware District Common Council Member Michael LoCurto’s office at mlocurto@city-buffalo.com to voice their support. The meeting will be held on January19th at 6:00, in the Lafayette Ave. Presbyterian Church, downstairs in the loaves and fishes room.
The expansion of Pano’s several years ago was also riddled with controversy. Having a nice place to sit, have a drink with friends, and be able to hear your conversation is what adult city dwellers like to do. The protests against this are reminiscent of the neighborhood protests that ended a planned hotel at the corner of Elmwood and Forest, near Buff State. It’s a sorry state that businesses have to spend money and energy responding to – and often succumbing to – propaganda and lies, unless they’re well-connected and donate money to the right people, in which case they can, for instance, taunt politicians from illegal billboards on ironically crumbling, speculatively owned buildings.
Maybe Acropolis should be a future Cash Mob destination.
Buffalo Billions
HT Marquil at EmpireWire.com
Buffalo Food Truck Legislation Debated
A hearing of the Buffalo Common Council’s Legislative Committee was held yesterday on the issue of a proposed statute legalizing food trucks within the city. You can read the proposed legislation and sign a petition here.
Truck advocates are generally pleased with the proposed law, but questioned the need to carry around two 65-gallon garbage cans in their trucks, and sought clarity on the definition of “property line” as set forth in the proposed law. An added issue I have with the law is that it should be easy for kitchens to waive the 100′ ban in an informal way, if mutually agreed-to.
It is expected that the final legislation will be passed before the end of this month. This will clarify, legalize, and regulate the food trucks’ operations for the 2012 warm weather season.
Courtesy of the Buffalo News’ Aaron Besecker, you can watch video of some of the presentations made at yesterday’s hearing, and pay close attention to Zetti’s Pizza’s John Fusco, who has a request for people who would vilify him on the internet. (For what it’s worth, I like Zetti’s, and I like John, but I think he’s wrong on this issue.) Unfortunately, the Buffalo News does not permit embedding of videos.
Do You Need Downtown?
As we round out 2011, I would usually post a retrospective of the year’s posts here, but most of my 2011 archives are no longer online. So, instead, I’ll leave you with this thought-provoking post from Rochester journalist Rachel Barnhart.
In it, Barnhart recounts a discussion she had with a friend about Rochester’s urban core and its suburbs. He argued that suburbanites simply have no need for the city proper anymore, as any and all of their daily needs can easily and conveniently be met closer to home. To them, whether the city sinks or swims is irrelevant, and they believe that the suburbs have developed a way of living that is immune to the city’s successes and failures. From Barnhart’s piece, her friend argued,
The suburbs are so great we don’t need to leave. We have everything, they’re the best suburbs in the country.
If you’re my dad, he has no reason to leave Webster. He has fine dining, shopping and Wegmans. You think people are always denigrating the city, but our suburbs are second to none.
You think life would stop in Brighton and Pittsford if downtown died? The city is not the hub for those people. I’m one of them.
I’m not smart enough to have a prescription to fix downtown. It’s sad and it’s a shame, but (the death of downtown) wouldn’t have the impact you think.
We need to focus on the entire area. We have great suburbs and crime is going down. You think I’m so anti-city and I’m not. I just don’t think downtown and the city are as important.
It’s a topic that comes up quite often in Buffalo. When I first started paying attention to local politics, the city was in rough shape and the county was doing great, flush with tobacco settlement money. Before the red/green budget, suburbanites would gleefully announce to, e.g., Sandy Beach that the county should just take over the city. Within a matter of days, the assumptions underlying that position changed 180 degrees. 
I’m a big believer in the notion that the suburbs and the city sink or swim together. Like Toronto, Erie County should have a metropolitan government that fairly represents all the people. We should have a unified school district that strives for excellence, and discourages complacency and failure. The 50s way of governing needs to be replaced with something more effective, and more reflective of current realities. We need to consolidate our business development, planning/land use, maintenance, and purchasing functions. We need to make it easier for businesses to navigate a much reduced, rationally laid out set of bureaucratic regulations. Nostalgia shouldn’t be our biggest industry – we need to better support and encourage today’s innovators and tomorrow’s moguls.
But turning specifically to the topic in Barnhart’s piece about the declining need for a downtown, there are loads of people throughout WNY who have no use for the city proper unless they have court, Sabres tickets, or the theater. All other services are not only available, but more convenient, closer to home; home predominately being some suburb.
Crowdsourcing
The national trend of hip young people moving into downtowns has touched Buffalo only tangentially; most newer housing is comprised of rentals, which have a built-in transience. Condos in the downtown core are almost exclusively high-end, going for more than 300k.
I think downtown Buffalo has a lot of problems that are largely self-inflicted through poor planning, little foresight, and weak zoning. A land value tax would go a long way towards rendering land speculation of vacant lots less economically viable, and perhaps grow downtown again. When I visit Rochester, it seems to me as if its downtown is more robust and better maintained than Buffalo’s. But that could be a grass-is-greener thing.
In order to render old, decaying downtowns vital and vibrant again, people need an incentive to go there. I’m an advocate for a sales-tax-free zone for Buffalo’s downtown core. By giving people $.0875 cents off every dollar they spend, you could easily, quickly, and organically spur interest in downtown retail and revitalize an area that people have no reason to visit. With the pending development of Buffalo’s Canal Side (waterfront project through the ESD), this sales-tax-free zone becomes even more acute of an issue. We’re spending millions to create a tourist/shopping/cultural destination, we should ensure that it’s used and that it helps revitalize its surroundings.
It’s not the weather. It’s not the 190 or the Scajaquada or the 33. It’s not the Skyway. These things are not keeping Buffalo’s downtown lame. Through a sales-tax-free downtown, people from throughout the region, and from Canada, will have a huge incentive to demand goods and services within that zone, and private enterprise will swoop in to supply it.
I think we do need downtown, but more importantly, downtown needs us. It needs feet on the ground, and it needs cash in wallets, ready to be spent on something. We have a real chicken-and-egg scenario here – retailers won’t come downtown because there isn’t any retail downtown. And let’s face it, when we think about a downtown – if you look at the old pictures of Main Street in the 50s, or better still, 100 years ago, it was a teeming mess of people, shops, eateries, offices; things to do, people to see.
It could be that again, given the right environment. It just needs a few nudges in the right direction.
Happy New Year.
First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo and Lloyd to Feed #Occupy Buffalo
On Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 5:00 PM, the Lloyd Taco Truck will pull into Niagara Square to give 75 burritos and beverages to the Occupy Buffalo protesters on behalf of First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo. This goodwill activity is being funded as a mission project by the church.“The Occupy movement is a peaceful movement. This holiday season we aim to share the peace of Christ with all,” said Rev. Dr. Philip S. Gittings, the Interim Pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo.
Formed in 1812, First Presbyterian Church is the city’s oldest congregation, and will celebrate its bicentennial during the next year. First Presbyterian Church is part of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbytery of Western New York. The congregation consists of approximately 300 active and inactive members. The church’s architecturally significant building on Symphony Circle features Tiffany-designed stained glass windows, two impressive pipe organs, and a 168-foot tall tower which stands as a beacon of hope on the west side of the city.
Lloyd Taco Trucks, Inc. hit the city streets in 2010 as the region’s first taco truck. Their mission is to bring legitimate street food to Buffalo by offering affordable yet incredibly tasty takes on tacos and burritos.
Follow @1stChurchBflo
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Follow @whereslloyd
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Proposed Buffalo Food Truck Law Unveiled
Councilman Joseph Golombek has circulated the proposed food truck law for the city of Buffalo reproduced below for review by his colleagues on the council and the food truck stakeholders and their opponents.
It is a compromise measure that incorporates the only two complaints that really came up as legitimate concerns on the part of the restaurants; firstly, it requires the trucks to have two 65 gallon trash cans set up at all times that they’re serving food. Secondly, the brick & mortar opponents win a victory in that the trucks must stay 100′ away from the property line of any existing restaurant. (The trucks wanted it to be 100′ from the front door of any such facility.) In the case of a special event, the radius is 500′.
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The trucks must physically measure the distance through the use of a measuring wheel, which can be purchased at any hardware store.
Trucks must be licensed annually by the city for a $1,000 fee, and a fine schedule for noncompliance with the regulations is set forth. The license is per truck, not per business, and the owner must undergo a background check, because I suppose one doesn’t want one’s pulled pork sandwich served by an ex-felon or something.
The one glaring omission I see here is that there may be times where the food trucks have permission from brick & mortar restaurants to set up nearby. For instance, this regulation may forbid Lloyd’s taco truck from setting up at Main & Mohawk now that there is a deli at that corner. Some restaurants may understand that competition and more people are good things. There should be a provision in the law that allows for exceptions if the truck has a brick & mortar’s consent.
In addition, the definition of “property line” is, to me, ambiguous. Is it the property line of the building in which the restaurant and its kitchen are housed, or is it the “property line” of the leased premises. For instance, are we talking about the entire Main Place Mall, or just the portions of it leased to food vendors? Are we talking about just Zetti’s on Elmwood, or the entire building in which it’s housed? This needs clarification.
Other than that, it’s a solid compromise law that ought to have been passed months ago, before food truck patrons were forced to stand in line in 20 degree weather to grab tacos and burgers. The common council must pass this law before the winter is over.
Proposed Food Truck Lawhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/76216760/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-apy5eod0zl44jfqrnoi//
Support Buffalo’s Food Trucks
The Western New York Food Truck Association, which is the unified voice of Buffalo’s food trucks, is still waiting for the City of Buffalo to draft, debate, vote on, and pass legislation that will legalize and regulate their business and movement within city limits. Buffalo Place, the organization that is in charge of regulating business activity in the downtown core, has already gone on record as pledging to follow whatever rules city government puts in place.
Legislation that was under consideration this past summer was tabled, and although the city was urged to resolve these issues before the weather turned lousy, it is now mid-December and the trucks are still waiting for a clear and concise set of rules under which to do business in the city. The WNY Food Truck Association, in conjunctino with the Institute for Justice, have produced this video to explain what they want, and what’s at stake.
http://youtu.be/dN9J9aZ7cLo
Please contact the Common Council and let them know that legislation should be passed to legalize and regulate these food trucks in Buffalo as soon as possible. Better still, you can sign this petition, which will result in an email being sent to the Mayor and each Common Council member.
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Follow @buffalopundit
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Support Buffalo's Food Trucks
The Western New York Food Truck Association, which is the unified voice of Buffalo’s food trucks, is still waiting for the City of Buffalo to draft, debate, vote on, and pass legislation that will legalize and regulate their business and movement within city limits. Buffalo Place, the organization that is in charge of regulating business activity in the downtown core, has already gone on record as pledging to follow whatever rules city government puts in place.
Legislation that was under consideration this past summer was tabled, and although the city was urged to resolve these issues before the weather turned lousy, it is now mid-December and the trucks are still waiting for a clear and concise set of rules under which to do business in the city. The WNY Food Truck Association, in conjunctino with the Institute for Justice, have produced this video to explain what they want, and what’s at stake.
http://youtu.be/dN9J9aZ7cLo
Please contact the Common Council and let them know that legislation should be passed to legalize and regulate these food trucks in Buffalo as soon as possible. Better still, you can sign this petition, which will result in an email being sent to the Mayor and each Common Council member.