Charlotte Toughens Rules On Mobile Food Vendors

Mobile food vendors face tougher laws now in Charlotte.

Charlotte City Council voted unanimously on new rules Monday night.

Vendor Manuel Guacin (speaking through translator Lori Khamala) opposed the rules and said, "We're here, everything we're doing. It's straight up. It's legal. We don't have anything to hide."

Many of the vendors are Hispanic and call the measures discrimination. Latino activist German de Castro said, "We are talking about an economic class that happens to be Hispanic."

Neighbors who pushed for the rules said it's not about ethnicity, it's about noise, garbage, and loitering. East Charlotte resident Ed Garber said, "These are all laws that you put in place for the mobile food vending industry. So how anybody came up with this whole racial thing is just absolutely ridiculous."

About 40 vendors and their supporters went to the meeting Monday night, to lobby council members in the losing cause, among them, N.C. Representative-elect Nick Mackey.