Safford considering code change for food trucks

Safford City staff is examining city code to determine what changes are needed to allowing food trucks a greater opportunity to remain in a single location, such as this vacant lot on U.S. Highway 70. - Google Maps Street View

SAFFORD — A Willcox restaurateur is asking the City of Safford to re-examine its approach to food trucks.

Safford Mayor Jason Kouts said he was approached by Jeff Wiley, owner of Big Tex Bar-B-Que and Isabel’s South of the Border restaurants, about finding a permanent home in Safford for his restaurants’ food trucks.

Currently proposed for a vacant lot on U.S. Highway 70, placement of a truck at a mobile food courtyard would include connecting to the city’s utilities as well as contracting for trash service.

The issue, according to city staff, is that current city code doesn’t allow for food trucks to take up permanent residence, limiting food trucks to 48 hours in one place and they can’t be on that property more than 10 days in any single year.

“I can look into this and propose some text amendments — it has to go through the text-amendment process — to loosen those regulations and allow more food trucks to come into town and they can extend the time they can stay on a given piece of property,” said Susan Anderson, Planning and Community Development director.

No date was set on when the proposed text amendments would come before the City Council.

Comments

comments