I’m greeting customers in front of Fried & Fabulous when a woman approaches followed by a man. He’s being sexually aggressive. She doesn’t know him and it’s pretty clear that the answer is no. The line of people at my food cart band together with me to tell him to go away, and he does.
It is little things like having a food cart on a corner, which promote public safety and change downtown for the better. But, you are getting screwed by the out of touch city of Madison staff who don’t understand what downtown is like after midnight. The downtown streets contain dark, lonely stretches and you have to wait longer or walk further for late-night food because Broom Street is the only viable area where late night food carts are allowed. With a large cluster of carts on Broom Street, traffic is being tied up, restaurants and food carts are seeing their sales decline, parking is harder to come by and trash is more prevalent.
A similar situation occurred several years ago on Frances, prompting the Vending Oversight Committee to shut down the street with many carts going out of business. I greatly fear the same thing happening again on Broom. For years now I’ve been trying to offer a more permanent solution. Given that a large cluster of carts have consistently caused controversy, it seems only logical to break the carts up into small clusters of 1-2 scattered throughout downtown. A majority of late night food cart owners spoke at the Vending Oversight Committee in December endorsing this solution. Seventy spaces were later presented to city staff as possibilities in a variety of different configurations.
Warren Hansen, the street vending coordinator for the city of Madison, has responded with a report recommending eight of these spaces in a single configuration that does little to reduce the cluster on Broom, and ignores giant portions of downtown, such as State Street. It seems that a food cart would produce too much noise for residents despite there already being the beer garden at Brats and or the screaming line of people outside Whiskey Jacks. We have to be careful on University Avenue because of the Fluno Center, according to an email from Warren “guards its serenity”.
Serenity? Are you kidding me?! There is nothing serene about that area after midnight! That’s across the street from Johnny O’s!
Warren might know that if he ever stopped by, but in the 3 years that I have had a cart, Warren has never visited the late night vending zone. When queried about the number of times he has visited, Warren responded in an email “I honestly do not remember.” This is the man who writes the recommendation on what the city should do and he can’t remember the last time he went downtown late at night because it has been too long.
Don’t let the out-of-touch city staff members ruin the downtown Madison area. Don’t let late night food carts be put out of business. The Vending Oversight Committee meets at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, January 29 in room 260 of the Madison Municipal Building. Warren can speak for as long as he wants, but anyone, including you, can speak for up to three minutes at the start. You have no idea how powerful your individual voice can be in convincing. I beg of you to please come and tell the committee what downtown is really like after midnight.
If the committee votes for my plan, Fried & Fabulous will give away free food on our first night in a new spot in order to show our gratitude. I suspect a couple other carts might do the same.
How do you feel about the possible addition of late night food trucks around the downtown area? Are you willing to join Steven and other owners in support? Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
