GENESEO — News of the recent changes to the Village of Geneseo code, including a section on food truck and vendors, concerned Cheesed and Confused grilled cheese truck owner Andy Doerflinger. Would his truck be shut down? Would he be charged a huge amount of money just to keep in business?
Doerflinger attended last week’s Geneseo Village Board of Trustees meeting to ask the Board some questions about what exactly he’d need to do to keep selling gourmet grilled cheese in the village.
It turns out, Doerflinger won’t have any major issues with the new code and can continue running his business.
According to the new section on food trucks and vendors, owners will need to obtain an indemnity bond in order to operate their trucks. The bonds protect the Village in case a food truck owner gets sued. According to the Village’s insurance agent Andrew Chanler, if a municipality has civil penalties and administrative fees, they can require a permit holder to have a bond, which pays the penalty immediately to the municipality.
Though the cost of the bond has not yet been determined, Chanler said the Board is considering setting the bond amount at $0, though they still need to discuss it before deciding. Chanler said the bond shouldn’t inhibit any vendor from selling. Vendors would also not need to obtain a bond until January 1.
The new section also states vendors will need to park at least 10 feet away from the doorway of any business and 50 feet away from other restaurants.
“Most of the sidewalks in the Village are at least 10 feet wide,” said Doerflinger. “This part of the changes is really not an issue as far as I can tell.”
As of right now, Doerflinger has only parked in front of the Idle Hour in the Village of Geneseo.
“The board overall is just getting their finger on the pulse of the food truck movement and want to have a permit system in effect so that there are not rogue operations coming into town and operating out of the back of their pickup truck or something like that,” said Doerflinger. “I also asked about being able to operate on private property with the permission of the property owner. The board indicated that would be fine because it is on private property. This whole thing could be a good thing for me as a business because I am a legitimate operation that has a professionally built food truck, we are health department certified and we run a clean business.”