WASHINGTON DC – The trade group representing D.C.’s food trucks is raising money so that its members can serve its customers materials about the District’s proposed regulations along with their lunches. The Food Truck Association of Metropolitan Washington recently launched a fundraising campaign in order to finance a purchase of handbills, stickers, and other items to raise awareness of its opposition to the current draft of the proposed regulations over mobile food vending.

The Department of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs’ most recent version of the regulations—the fourth since Mayor Vince Gray first proposed rules governing food trucks in January 2012—proposes 23 “mobile vending zones” where trucks could park without having to feed a meter. But the location of the zones as well as the proposed lottery system by which food trucks would secure spots sparked resistance from the Food Truck Association, which represents about 100 businesses.

Now, the group wants to make sure its customers know its talking points ahead of the April 8 deadline for public comments and an April 30 D.C. Council hearing.

“We’re basically trying to pay for campaign materials,” says Che Ruddell-Tabisola, the association’s political director. “I think also to let people know about some of the benefits that food trucks provide.”

Ruddell-Tabisola says that the food truck industry employs about 400 people, and in a four-year span ending last year created an estimated $3.45 million in tax revenue for the city’s coffers.

Find the original article by Benjamin R. Freed at the DCist.com <here>