San Mateo officials are weighing whether to crack down harder on the growing number of street food vendors setting up carts, tents and trucks around the city, but they are running into a wall: California law leaves cities with little room to regulate sidewalk sellers. The city council recently debated the issue as residents, especially in the North Central neighborhood near the Martin Luther King Jr. Center, have complained about smoke, grease, trash, blocked sidewalks, long customer lines and vendors overstaying their welcome in one spot.
As reported by the San Mateo Daily Journal, city staff say state laws have hamstrung the ability to make a significant impact on the complaints. Jurisdictions retain some ability to regulate food trucks directly, but sidewalk vendors and home restaurants are largely shielded from robust local regulations under state legislation. The Daily Journal reports San Mateo currently counts 52 licensed food vendors, 23 of which hold a San Mateo address, and that food trucks, tents and trailers often set up at parks, mainly at night and on weekends.
The legal backdrop traces to Senate Bill 946, known as the Safe Sidewalk Vending Act, which California passed in 2018 to decriminalize sidewalk vending and bar outright bans in public rights-of-way or non-residential neighborhoods, according to a California Cities analysis. Cities and counties can still require business licenses and permits and impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions tied to health, safety and welfare; violations may receive administrative fines and permits may be rescinded. Under SB 946, permitted sidewalk vendors face fines of $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second offense within a year and $500 for each additional violation, the same analysis notes. A 2022 follow-up law, Senate Bill 972, created a new Compact Mobile Food Operation category for sidewalk food vending.
Council Debates Letting Trucks Use Vacant Lots
Much of the council's discussion, per the Daily Journal's account, centered on whether food trucks should be allowed to operate on private property. Councilmembers Danielle Cwirko-Godycki and Rob Newsom both agreed that vendors could potentially use vacant lots if they secure property-owner approval, a business tax certificate and county health clearance. Cwirko-Godycki said she sees an opportunity for food trucks amid the city's recent development surge, pointing to land sitting temporarily open, and argued the city needs conditional-use permits so that operations work with landowners while balancing community interests and helping small businesses thrive.
Not everyone on the dais agreed. Deputy Mayor Nicole Fernandez and Councilmember Lisa Diaz Nash both opposed letting vendors occupy private land regardless of whether it sits vacant, the Daily Journal reported. Mayor Adam Loraine landed somewhere in between, agreeing to explore vendor opportunities on vacant property so long as required permits and food-handling certificates are obtained first.
Parking Complaints Concentrate Near MLK Center
Fernandez raised concerns from residents in her district, which the Daily Journal says attracts a high volume of street vendors, particularly in the North Central neighborhood near the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. She recommended the council ask its legislative committee to examine the issue at the state level, given how little room cities have to act on their own under current law.
Newsom emphasized parking enforcement specifically, saying vendors should not be able to occupy multiple spots and park for hours without facing a fine. City staff cautioned that stricter parking limits could raise staffing costs for the city. Staff also flagged two concrete problems during the discussion: nonmotorized food carts parking on sidewalks without permits, and a nearby restroom that raised concerns about hand-washing.
San Mateo's own municipal code already sets limits on vehicle-based vending. Under city code section 11.40.080, food carts, lunch wagons and similar vehicles selling food on city streets must first obtain a written permit from the City Council specifying exactly where they may stand. The code generally bars selling food from a vehicle, wagon or pushcart except at the request of a bona fide purchaser, and even then for no more than 10 minutes at any one location. The Daily Journal reports that San Mateo issued 14 fines to food vendors over the previous seven months, with nine fines involving one particular vendor.
County Health Steps Into the Gap
The council agreed to collaborate directly with the county health department going forward, and San Mateo plans to roll out stricter regulations largely through education, using county-provided signs to inform vendors about public safety and health codes. Newsom favored working with the county to enforce county food-health standards in situations where city tools fall short. Under that arrangement, San Mateo County's health department will take on regulating mobile vending that fails to meet city requirements.
San Mateo County Environmental Health Services is responsible for inspecting various types of mobile food facilities, according to the county health department, and its Vehicle Inspection Program conducts both annual certification and complaint-driven inspections. But the county is explicit about where its authority ends: unpermitted food vendors are not regulated or inspected by its Environmental Health Services Food Program at all. The county directs residents who spot a suspected unpermitted vendor to contact their city's code enforcement office, and anyone who gets sick after eating from a vendor can file a complaint through the My EHS system or call 650-372-6200.
How a Neighboring City Has Handled It
San Mateo isn't the first Peninsula city to wrestle with these limits. Redwood City requires vendors to get an additional permit if they want to stay in one spot for more than 30 minutes, according to a city brochure, and caps vending hours between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Vendors and catering truck operators there must carry a city business license, photo identification permit, county health certificate and sticker, and any applicable parks permit, or risk citations and fines ranging from $50 for missing-document violations up to $250 for catering-truck violations — the brochure notes a business can even be shut down for repeated noncompliance.
Burlingame took a different approach, building a sidewalk-vendor permitting program designed to comply with SB 946 while still giving the city room to act against unpermitted vending, according to the city's municipal code. That ordinance cites pedestrian and vehicle traffic flow, emergency access and public safety as justification for restrictions, noting that many of the city's sidewalks and pathways run narrower than eight feet, which can interfere with foot traffic and disability access.
Elsewhere in California, Santa Barbara County ran a six-month sidewalk-vending enforcement pilot that resulted in 13 notices of violation, the removal of 1,156 pounds of contaminated food and the confiscation of 13 sets of cooking equipment, according to the Lompoc Record. After that pilot wrapped, county health staff said they would simply fold complaint response into regular operations going forward.
San Mateo County is also among several California counties, alongside Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Alameda and Contra Costa, that have adopted Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations rules governing home-based food sales, according to Mission Local's reporting on the broader street food regulatory landscape statewide. That same report notes Los Angeles has taken a different tack entirely, launching a $2.8 million program meant to help 280 street vendors obtain carts that comply with newer city codes — a reminder that even as cities search for enforcement tools, some are also investing in helping vendors get legal in the first place.
