Area food trucks may be in Limbo as winter approaches... (10-27-11)

Area food trucks may be in limbo as winter approaches…

This past Tuesday the Buffalo Common Council once again opened the floor to the ongoing Food Truck debate and 45 minutes later, the sides were no closer to a badly needed resolution. The council apparently wanted no part of making the hard decisions or helping to bridge the gap for the two groups when they tabled the debate for at least another month. In September the council heard both sides of the argument and ended that public hearing by creating a special panel consisting of 3 people representing the newly formed Food Truck Association and 3 from the side representing the Brick and Mortar restaurants opposed to the potentially free roaming trucks. They were given 30 days to try to reach a middle ground and draft fair legislation that the council could vote on. Needless to say the food trucks would love clarification on where they can and cannot go. The current cautiously restrictive atmosphere with no rules favors the brick and mortars although the fact that they have made such a stink about the trucks shows they are afraid of them and want to nip them before they are numerous and widespread over the area. The council hoped the two sides could come up with something they could simply vote on and sign but I think everyone but the council knew it was not going to be that easy.

The council tried to pass the responsibility to the parties involved to find the answer instead of coming up with one themselves and this has only delayed the process which hurts the food truck side more than the B&Ms. The increasing passion displayed by both parties is making it very difficult for the two sides to work together and compromise their way to fair legislation and recent events suggest it would seem one side is a little more interested in finding that resolution than the other. The food trucks have been on record since day one asking for fair legislation so that they and the brick and mortars could finally know what the rules are and conduct business accordingly. This process began months ago as the elder statesmen of the Buffalo food truck scene, Lloyd Taco Trucks (who have been in service well over a year now) worked last April to draft legislation with North district council member  Joseph Golombek that has basically been forgotten at this point. What do brick and mortars really have to gain by coming to the table and working this thing out? They like how things are now whereby the trucks are limited and cannot move around freely. They want the food trucks on short leashes. The B&Ms have no incentive to want fair legislation. This idea of a panel was doomed from the start and seems like the council’s way of avoiding doing the work and making the tough decisions they would have to make to get this done. So when I heard that the two parties could not reach an agreement after the 30 days I was not surprised.

This is how it works: When the food truck side brings over any ideas the other side screams about how it’s not fair and holds it up without offering any ideas of their own and if by chance they do, they’ll be unreasonable ideas at best, again wasting everyone’s time and insuring nothing will get done making this dynamic eerily similar to the dynamic going on in Washington and in cities all over the country right now. One side wants it fair for all and the other side doesn’t want to give an inch or let anybody join their club. To me this food truck squabble reflects the growing fights in this country between the rich and poor, democrats and republicans and the occupiers camped out in every major city. One group wants to work to fix a problem and the other group won’t take their calls.   

Reports indicate that the good faith discussions went south just days before the Council’s mandated 30 day period were up and broke down into a yelling match between the two sides. All over the country battles are being waged by protectionist factions seeking the status quo and these upstart mobile vendors who just want a fair chance to compete in the marketplace. In some cities great strides are being made and happy consumers are reaping the delicious results while in other places food trucks are forced into being rogue outlaw type vendors despite the public love and demand for them.

It’s well documented all over this country, people WANT food trucks. The food is often times cheaper, fresher, healthier and arguably tastier than their B&M counterparts. Businesses like brick and mortar restaurants who pay large chunks in property taxes and who are subject to fees and regulations they claim the food trucks do not, have the ears of their local politicians. Money talks. But do the food trucks have an unfair advantage over the brick and mortar restaurants? Just because they both serve food, that doesn’t make them easy to compare. In fact, some would tell you that comparing the two is akin to comparing apples and oranges, that is, related but not the same.

Food trucks are mobile and this means they can tap into customer bases all over an area, at least in theory. As for now in Buffalo, the trucks can only appear on private property by invitation or in a designated public location if they obtain the proper permit. Lloyd has maintained a regular home at Main and Mohawk through the use of such a permit. Most of the major pedestrian areas of Buffalo have been closed to the trucks. Any attempt to vend in one of them results in someone calling the police, complaining and asking for action. This happens despite the fact the trucks are not breaking any laws (none exist), they get asked to leave which in the few instances when it has happened, the trucks have complied, again despite not doing anything technically wrong.

Brick and mortars talk about how the food trucks have an unfair advantage. I just don’t see it, especially as the weather turns for the next 5-6 months. Even today on my way in I saw the Whole Hog at Millard Fillmore hospital and there were no lines. People don’t want to stand in the cold for a sizable amount of time with no warm place to sit and eat unless they are lucky enough to work or live next to where the truck is located that day and even then it’s still a matter of wanting to brave the elements to wait for the food. That’s certainly going to discourage a fair amount of people from patronizing the trucks in the winter. These trucks have service windows but not a drive thru one. As a reaction to this, some trucks are informing customers they can call ahead and order but that is still thought of as more work than going through a drive-thru, stopping somewhere warm for fast food or even having lunch delivered. When it gets cold, I say advantage restaurants with their warm seating, restrooms and ability to offer customers more than just a nice meal.

It’s more than a seasonal disadvantage. Since the trucks move around often and use social media and websites to update their status sometimes with only a few hours notice, many people don’t even know when a truck is in the neighborhood or at or near their workplace. Plus there are others who simply can’t get there. Take me for instance as someone who often bikes to work. It’s not easy to go half way across town on a 30 or even 60 minute lunch break to get food. People like me will often frequent places close by due to time and travel restraints. If a truck happens to be close by, that’s great, I have another choice but I can count the number of times a food truck has been near my work on one hand. Yes they can offer fresher, cheaper, healthier and possibly even better tasting options than many restaurants but should that make them that serious a threat? Some people want food truck food for the taste, the cost or the novelty but many people still want to sit and dine and enjoy the comforts of a restaurant. There is room for both, especially in places like Buffalo where any trip out to people watch will quickly and easily demonstrate how much we love to eat.  

This “fight” shouldn’t even be happening. How is this really different from what goes on in America daily? It’s called competition. We see it all the time. Starbucks had no problem moving 2 buildings down from Caffe Aroma on Elmwood several years ago. Where was the proximity rule then? Where was the group of local businesspeople fighting for a local businesses’ right to exist without potential corporate domination? When Jim’s Steakout started serving tacos, where was all the public distain from Elmwood Taco and Sub? I mean, they are right across the street from each other. How could they do such a thing? These B&Ms would have you believe that these trucks are so dangerous to the local economy because they’ll close restaurants. They’ll try to make people afraid of them because they are easy to run and operate and they’ll overrun us all!  If they are so easy to start, why doesn’t every one of these restaurants have a truck of their own already or one on the way? It’s because these trucks are not easy to run or operate. Many of these brash entrepreneurs have gambled a great deal on these trucks. Some have returned home after decades away to pursue a dream. Others have gone out on their own to start their first business. They should not be denied the right to do so because the people who already have seats at the table don’t want any company. This is America where people can start businesses and chase dreams, where competition is king and choice is the consumer’s right.   

Restaurants open right next to other restaurants all the time. It’s a fact of life. To this day the intersection of Delaware and Sheridan features a McDonald’s and a Burger King kitty corner from one another and has for over a decade. Would one prefer that the other wasn’t there, of course but competition and innovation are two cornerstones of the business world. So there’s a new kid in town with better food and prices… tough, suck it up. Do what you did when your nearest competitor opened down or across the street from you. Make your product better, advertise well and win people back with your product and service. This is just one man’s opinion but if ETS or Jim’s had a better burrito or taco than Lloyd Taco Trucks, I would have continued to eat there, however they don’t, it’s not close and I think Lloyd has one of the best burritos in the city, if not the best. I think The Roaming Buffalo has one of the best burgers. I also love the pulled pork, greens and sides at The Whole Hog and R & R BBQ. I go to them because they are better. To use a bit of street slang, I find this whole situation to be player-hating of the highest order. To date, no restaurant has gone out of business because of a food truck but maybe some of them should if they can’t step up their game and keep up with the times. Why can’t any brick and mortar get a food truck of their own? I heard a rumor that The Place on Lexington is doing just that. Good for them. It will expand their business and customer base and they can reach out to people who never heard of them or knew of their whereabouts. It’s smart business.        

The restaurants know that winter is the toughest time of the year for the food trucks, especially in colder climates like this one. This long cold winter with no legislation could potentially cost the Buffalo area a few trucks and possibly more of the aspiring ones who sit on the sidelines waiting to see what the council will do before they dive completely in. With the economy how it is and how it has been in this area for decades, the high taxes, the abnormally high gas prices and living in an economically recessed area like this one which some might say is about 50 years past it’s prime, you would think lawmakers would want to encourage new business and actually I dunno, do their job and make laws that help to raise this area back up again.

As a lifelong Buffaloian I can tell you my love for this city runs deep and despite the lack of jobs and opportunities, I still think of Buffalo as a great place to live. A big part of the reason I do is the quality of life here. For most of us the quality of life is largely broken down into nature, sports and then arts and culture. Right now the sports are doing fine and we’re all better for it… anyone who thinks otherwise need only to check the office mood the morning after a Bills game. But the other side of it, the arts and culture side has been under siege by a hopefully soon to be leaving county executive who doesn’t think arts and culture funding is fiscally responsible and a common council afraid to act and give the people what they want.

At this week’s hearing The Director of Activism and Coalitions for the nationally known Institute for Justice, Christina Walsh flew up here on her own dime to talk to the council about the importance of passing legislation for the trucks and making Buffalo a trendsetter at the lead of the movement. She also set the record straight discussing the misconceptions about food trucks and backed it up with numbers and facts. From what I understand she dazzled those in attendance with facts and logic. I guess that kind of language scared and/or confused the council. At the September public hearing the Food Truck Association presented the council with a petition that had over 5,000 signatures collected in mere days in support of the food trucks. Such passionate support for such a new enterprise can only attest to the growing and continued popularity of these trucks. It’s time to put up or shut up Buffalo. We want them, give them to us!   

Put something together and TRY it. Find out what works and what doesn’t. Draft some short term legislation and let’s find out what’s fair and what isn’t. Let’s see what happens and then we can tweak it to make it better but DO something! The food trucks have been fighting the bureaucracy of the politicians and the stall tactics of the brick and mortars for over a year now with no end in sight. They have petitions, online fans in the thousands and even national advocates for freedom speaking on their behalf. What they don’t have is legislation. This is a critical point in the process. Some of the trucks may not make it through the winter or be forced to relocate to a city more inviting than Buffalo has been so far. Imagine that… a Buffalo rooted food truck thriving in another city because Buffalo didn’t want them! It’s time for the common council to sit down with both sides and get this thing done. The people want long overdue action. Forgive me if I’m not too confident in the council to act but this week’s inaction by putting the issue aside only strengthens the long standing cynical belief among many citizens that City Hall is the place where good ideas go to die. Let’s change that long standing cynicism and transform City Hall from graveyard to the institution we all hoped it could be. Buffalo Common Council the ball is your court. The people have spoken. Get it done!   

On bullying (10-5-11)

My heart is broken to read about the story of Jamey Rodemeyer. It’s all over the local and national news but in case you missed it he was a 14 year old kid who went to Williamsville North High School who killed himself recently due to the deep pain he felt generated by the hate of others. He was bullied since the 5th grade said the reports, which was about at least 4-5 years of hate he suffered until he could no longer endure it. This story and this topic touches me deeply because of the things I went through at exactly the same age Jamey was.

I didn’t have to deal with the same personal issues Jamey did but I had my own. Growing up an interracial kid was often tough. I didn’t know who I was. I’ve touched on it in many of my poems. Was I white? Was I Puerto Rican? I didn’t know many mixed kids. Back then there weren’t many. The white kids would often consider me “dirty” because I was half Hispanic and the Hispanic kids would say things like “you’re not a real Puerto Rican”. Compounding this problem was my inability to speak Spanish which further distanced me from Latin kids. My father never spoke it around me. It’s always something I wished I had asked him about. Because of this most of my friends when I was little were black, white and Native American.

During junior high I got along okay. I was a smart kid but a lazy one. I followed the crowd most of the time and tried really hard to not stick out or be singled out like some of the “nerds” and “geeks”. This lack of effort cost me when it came time for high school. I applied for a good city high school like Hutch Tech but I didn’t make it in. I let my average slip from a 96 in 6th grade to a 78 in 8th grade. I wasn’t trying at all to grow or excel and that was the price I paid to be one of the crowd and be left alone.

Without getting into a “better” high school I had to go to Grover Cleveland High since I lived closest to it. Prior to starting high school my best friend moved to Texas. My other good friend had left a few years earlier to go to California, so there I was, without anyone close and starting life in a whole new world. In Junior high I was in a class with many kids I had known for years, whether we were friends or not. But now, in high school without a friend to follow, without a kliq I knew to emulate I kind of did my own thing. I grew my hair long and wore ripped up jeans and black rock n roll t-shirts. It was the first time in my life where I actually demonstrated any style. Till then, my style was basic jeans and button downs, slacks and polo shirts…all very boring and vanilla. Now I was starting to experiment and I began down the path to figuring out who I was.

Ninth grade was pretty brutal. I was a quiet kid. I didn’t talk to too many people, didn’t make many new friends. The vast majority of Grover was made up of Hispanic and Black kids and they didn’t care for how I looked I guess. To them I looked like a freaky white kid. There were very FEW of those at Grover. I wasn’t allowed to sit with anyone “cool” at lunch. In fact most of the time I sat with the foreign kids who could barely speak any English at all. For several months my lunch neighbors were a pack of kids from Poland and Russia. We never spoke. I tried to move to other tables but was told to get lost all the time, sometimes in a threatening manner. They called me freak, weirdo, queer, Satan worshipper and many other wonderful things. I even tried to befriend the other handful of kids who wore black t-shirts and shredded jeans but they didn’t want anything to do with me either. They wore Megadeth t-shirts and here I was with my Def Leppard one. I wasn’t even cool enough for the outcasts.

By my sophomore year it had gotten so bad that I was absent 60-something times from school. I remember the truant officer advised me to take advantage of my 16th birthday before junior year started and drop out of school. I guess he was sick of having to check up on me. I wasn’t a bad kid. I didn’t ditch school, I simply faked illness A LOT to get out of it and stayed home. In the meantime my studies were at the lowest point they had ever been. I had about a 68 average. I barely passed 10th grade and I didn’t care. I had no interest in going to classes where people would sabotage my desk so it would fall apart when I sat in it. I didn’t want to sit at a lunch table with foreign kids who wouldn’t give me a simple greeting while having peas thrown at me by the cool kids from their cool table. I never bothered anyone, always kept to myself and all I truly wanted was to be left alone. I was cheating myself out of an education as well because coming to school was so hard.

As 10th grade ended I didn’t care about school, had no friends, couldn’t get a female to even look at me and still didn’t have any clue who I was other than a reject. Things looked pretty bleak and I wondered what the next step would be as I had the summer to figure it out. Thankfully two nice things happened over that summer that changed the course of my life and maybe saved me from being pushed into oblivion. The first was that my good friend came back from Texas so then I had someone to pal around with. I decided that maybe I shouldn’t do my own thing anymore. On the one hand I regressed as I cut my hair and started dressing like everyone else again but on the other I didn’t feel so alone and isolated out there which was obviously not something I was ready for yet.

The other good thing that happened was that I grew a few more inches and suddenly I was 6’2” and 180 pounds. I was long and lanky. I was fast and very athletic. My friend who spent 2 years in Texas and who was indoctrinated into their football society suggested we both try out for the Grover High team. I had been playing pick up football and lightpost football in the street since I could remember so I agreed even though I was scared beyond belief.

I went out in the summer, made the team and watched in awe as almost immediately some people began to treat me differently. There I was on the first day of school, no longer a mutant because I was now a jock. It really was just like the movies. I’d walk down the hall and I’d get a “what’s up Gomez” from people who would have made fun of me a year before. I had successfully rehabilitated my image to some but there were others who might have painted me a dumb jock. One of them was this female I was enamored with. She wouldn’t give me the time of day. She was pretty, smart and quite popular. Just being a football player wasn’t enough to get her to say more than a polite hello to me. She had a negative opinion of football players and with good reason; they were among the biggest dicks in the school. I had to turn it up.

I started going to all my classes and I stopped pretending to be sick to get out of going to school. By the end of the first quarter I had become known for being a tough football player and my average shot up from the upper 60’s of sophomore year to the mid 90’s. Many administrative people at school were very impressed. I now would stop in the hall and have conversations with certain teachers. People saw me in a whole new light. I went from weird, quiet kid that never spoke and was never around to always smiling, always pleasant to everyone. I no longer needed to walk the halls with my head down. I came out of my shell and I thought I left the pain and being pushed around behind.

You’ve probably heard this saying in one shape or form: no matter how cool you think you are, there’s always someone cooler. Perhaps you heard it with smart and smarter, or fast and faster. Regardless, there were still the über-cool at school and those people didn’t accept me because I wasn’t cool to begin with so I wasn’t a “pureblood” and there was still the occasional reject kids who didn’t like me for one reason or another, maybe jealousy because I bypassed them. I had a run-in with a few of them in study hall one time during that junior year and it reminded me both how far I had to go and also that I would never get there.

I still remember the moment vividly. I was sitting alone in a half full study hall and I was flipping through the first college brochure I ever had. Because my grades turned around I actually began to consider the next level. I even dressed better as I often wore button down dress shirts and slacks instead of ratty t-shirts and jeans. I got my hair cut and I even brushed it most days. I was on a whole new path and I was letting myself get intoxicated with it. I was flipping through this book filled with information on hundreds of colleges excited at the prospects now in front of me when something very light and long hit my head. It was still there. I reached up and pulled a lollipop stick from my hair. Thankfully, it didn’t stick too much.

Someone ate a sucker and basically threw the stick at me when they were done. Rage swept over me. The rage I felt was nearly as surprising to me as the incident itself. Who would dare throw this in my hair? Don’t they know who I am now? This was the kind of thing that happened to the old me. I looked over and saw a group of four guys in the back corner of the classroom giggling. With the lollipop stick in my hand I sprung up from my desk and made the quickest route to them, throwing aside empty desks in my wake. I stood before all of them and screamed “WHO DID IT!?!”

These kids were Spanish kids who didn’t speak much English. No one really knew who they were as they stuck to their own little groups and remained mostly invisible at school. They took special classes taught in Spanish and didn’t really cross paths with the majority of students except for at lunch, in gym or in a study hall. I had never said a word to one, nor ever did anything to any of these four kids. They were laughing and feeling good about themselves until I stormed over and called their bluff.

The biggest one of the group got up and started making gestures and acting tough. Without hesitating I threw a thrust kick right at his face and just missed him. He was shocked that I wasn’t there to posture and play games like people did in those times where the majority of the fight was mostly talking and getting in someone’s face rather than actual combat. With his friends watching and I already having thrown the first attack he decided to bum rush and tackle me. He charged and ran right into my midsection and nothing happened. I didn’t fall back and he didn’t move me. He was stuck there vulnerable and foolish. With a keen memory of all the bullying, teasing and harassing I dealt with the past 2 years my rage had made me powerful. I was lashing out now for all the times I didn’t, for all the times I couldn’t. I reached down and grabbed the guy and thrust him up over my head and violently onto the floor behind me. I wrapped my arm around his chin and began pulling on a headlock/chokehold which had my opponent helpless. As my grip on his head and neck tightened my conscious mind rebooted and began operating again. I thought, oh this isn’t good. I let my emotions get the better of me in what wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last time it would happen. I decided not to elevate this further so I stopped trying to defeat him. I ceased wrenching on his guy’s neck and basically used just enough force to hold him there until teachers and administrators arrived.

It was only a few more seconds and then 2 teachers and an assistant principal ran in. They told me to release him and I did, putting my two hands up into the air in kind of a “you got me” position. My red-faced foe took the opportunity to punch me in the back of the head as I did that. It angered me but his punch had nothing on it, probably because I almost choked him out. I didn’t even turn around. I walked right into the assistant principal’s office and stated what had happened. I didn’t go with any of the typical juvenile behavior, no lying or making up stuff to seem innocent. I just said he threw a lollipop stick in my hair and I wasn’t going to stand for it. The fact that there wasn’t a teacher or anyone in the room probably enabled these kids to do what they did which caused my reaction to it. So the teacher was at fault because he was elsewhere while this occurred and it was also my fault for escalating it. Because of my excellent turnaround scholastically and my sincerity describing the incident I got less punishment than the other kid. I was 16 years old and that was the last fight I’ve ever been in.

On one hand I was proud I stood up for myself but on the other hand I was both embarrassed and frightened by my actions. Many years of being pushed around and made fun of built an impressive and unfortunate amount of rage inside of me. I am confident in any skirmish but quite frankly I’m also afraid of what I could do if I was pushed too far. That said I still carry a lot of pain from throughout my life within. It seeps out occasionally when I cry at a weird time during a movie, like at a particularly happy moment. My emotions come pouring out of me at times, sometimes very easily so I am glad it takes a lot to make me angry.

I had always scribbled. I drew pictures of things, I wrote little stories. But sometime after that fighting incident I began to write poetry and journals. I thought about how angry I was and how I snapped and unleashed all this bottled up pain. I thought maybe if I began to address the things inside that eat away at me I might be able to rid myself of some if not all of it, plus in the process of writing out things I thought it might be a good way to get acquainted and learn more about myself. It isn’t a cure all but I’d say writing has helped me greatly to better understand myself and my actions. It helps me to vent and release when I run into frustrating things in the world so I can move on to the next moment. Writing helped me to survive it all. Many kids talk about “surviving” their childhood, often in jest but I really feel like I survived mine.

So here I am, all grown up and having lived both sides of it. I was shy and uncool. I was a geek, a freak, a mutant and a nerd. I was also a jock, I was chatty, bright and cool. To this day I am all those things. It took me a long time to figure out a person could be. When you’ve been on both sides of the scope I guess it’s easier to see the target and know what it’s like to aim.

To this day I still hate bullying and making someone feel bad because of who they are, who they aren’t, what they have, what they don’t. What would have happened if I didn’t grow big and tall, play sports and improve my grades? Would I have killed myself? Harmed others? Would I have led a rough and tumble life? I’ve always had a big heart but I’ve also always been passionate, fiery and emotional. I often root for the underdog and if a big guy is pushing a little guy around it pisses me off and a lot of times I say something. I have a strong sense of justice and I deeply hate when evil goes unpunished.

Many of those days and nights long ago when bullies pushed me around I never thought about suicide but I often thought of revenge. I always love to see the bad guy get their comeuppance. I’ve always had revenge fantasies and some of my favorite films are revenge films and vigilante films. My unfinished novel “Tableturning” is all about common guys getting sick of being stepped on and doing something about it. All these strong feelings and deeply embedded impulses exist all because some people pushed me around and made me to feel inferior. I was lucky to get out, get away from the abuse but some people aren’t so lucky. Some can’t escape it and it consumes them. Some like Jamey, can only endure so much hate while others feel the need to inflict pain and suffering on others in order to feel right themselves. There’s a saying about tearing down others to pick yourself up. Don’t do it. Look inside yourselves and figure out what’s wrong with YOU not what is wrong with someone else. Don’t inflict your unhappiness on others. The damage you can do may last a lifetime or even worse shorten one.

I hope Jamey Rodemeyer found peace. In many ways I think I’ve found some level of peace with myself to sustain me in this life but I’ve never found complete peace with the world. There’s a lot of evil and hate out there. It’s sad but it’s the truth. I may have to accept it but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. In this moralistic war I try to use love and kindness as my weapons and I’m aware of what good can do but I’m also well aware of my emotions, my limitations and my short comings. I’m aware of what I am capable of if pushed too hard and too far. I hope no one else ever has to find out. RIP Jamey.