Food Trucks May Ply Their Wares in Goleta

“I have all my permits, and my license from Goleta, too,” said the Disfruta food truck operator, as he explained to Goleta’s City Council on Tuesday afternoon that a zoning violation he’d received had put him out of work. “I have a really hard time to support my family,” Jesus Martinez said with worry in his voice as he asked for the council’s help getting his business back on its feet. “We share our amazing food,” his son, Jesus Martinez S, told the council. “It’s no surprise restaurant owners fear our success.”

Goleta currently has no food truck language in any of its ordinances, though the ongoing zoning overhaul has a draft version. The current lack, however, makes food trucks automatically verboten in the city — unless a blind eye is turned to their presence, which is what Councilmember Stuart Kasdin assured Martinez would be the case here on out.

Councilmember Roger Aceves, gesturing that the Burger Bus used to park in their parking lot, reminisced about the Helms Bakery truck and stated that food trucks appeared daily at construction sites and at breweries on the weekend. “I don’t want to see what other cities are doing,” Aceves said, stating that he’d brought the issue to the table. “I want to make an ordinance that fits our community and lets them continue.”

After some chicken-and-egg confusion on whether the Ordinance Committee or the Planning Commission was the place to start with the present problem, the council agreed to approach it at the Ordinance Committee in September. “Get back to work,” Aceves told those assembled after the unanimous vote.