BATTLE CREEK, MI – Battle Creek officials will again discuss proposed downtown ordinance changes related to food trucks after putting the discussion on hold for nearly five months.

A public roundtable meeting on revisions of the city’s vending, downtown business district and special events ordinances will be held Wednesday, April 23. City staff held the first session in late November, during which downtown business owners voiced concerns over unfair competition from food trucks while residents said the mobile vendors could provide additional, much-needed dining options in Battle Creek.

Decades-old regulations prohibit food trucks from operating in the downtown area, the only part of Battle Creek where the mobile vendors are banned.

Officials have since changed the proposed vendors ordinance to allow food trucks downtown near Festival Market Square, the home of the Battle Creek Farmer’s Market and where construction planned for this year would enhance the site as a public gathering space.

Vendors would be prohibited in the downtown business district except “in designated parking space located parallel to Jackson between McCamly Street and Capital Avenue Southwest,” according to the ordinance.

The city said in a news release that the revisions would make the ordinances “more consistent with each other, as well as state law.” Susan Bedsole, interim city manager and community services director, said she hopes the recent change for food trucks is a “win-win situation” for the parties involved.

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