HUMBOLDT — Mayor Nobby Davis did not share the enthusiasm of fellow council members Monday night in their full embrace of permitting Austin Honaker of Red Beard BBQ to station his food truck on the downtown square.
Honaker requested permission to set up shop near the town’s three establishments that sell alcohol, but have limited, and in some cases, no food offerings.
Current statutes do not allow for open-ended arrangements for food trucks on public property.
Honaker said he expected his food truck to be open for business the same hours as the bars, from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends.
Council member Sunny Shreeve embraced Honaker’s proposal, saying “Wouldn’t it be nice to have the trucks all the way around the square?”
Davis felt otherwise.
“As a restaurant owner, this is a pretty hard pill to swallow,” he said. “I disagree 100 percent.”
“When you’re sitting in your restaurant, and you’ve got a food truck parked outside that doesn’t pay any property taxes, that’s tough,” Davis said.
“If you owned a lumber yard, you wouldn’t want somebody across the street selling lumber out of the back of a semi,” Davis said.
Honaker said he understood Davis’s position, and in fact, is working to become a permanent fixture on the square. Honaker said he is planning to open a restaurant at the very site where Davis operated Opie’s Family Restaurant, on the northwest corner of the square.
Davis closed the restaurant in February of 2022 after 4½ years.
Honaker said Tuesday he plans to open his restaurant by the end of May.
Council members were amenable to the suggestion by city attorney Fred Works that a contract was necessary to stipulate the terms of an agreement with food truck vendors. As of Wednesday, the details had yet to be determined.
In other business, council members denied the request of Tessa Lou Francis to raise chickens at her home, which is within the city limits.
Tessa Lou, age 8, appealed to council members to change the city code at their Dec. 12 meeting.
Shreeve, representing the city code committee, said there was consensus among committee members, city administrator, chief of police and city attorney that allowing poultry within the city limits would not be a good policy primarily because of public health concerns.
Shreeve listed their concerns, which included:
• Chickens can transmit salmonella and the Avian bird flu;
• Chicken coops attract rats, snakes and other similar types of animals, as well as coyotes and other natural predators.
• Chickens inherently create issues because they are noisy and messy and enforcing regulations would be problematic.
