Council approval clears way for future Cravemobile visits, ice cream trucks
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette
Councilman Joe Buckman reviews an ordinance the council was about to approve during Tuesday’s meeting of the Bardstown City Council. Click to enlarge.
Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014, 11 p.m. — The Bardstown City Council gave final approval to a new mobile food vendor ordinance Tuesday night regulating food trucks and making it legal again for ice cream trucks to sell their wares on the streets of “The Most Beautiful Small Town in America.”
The ordinance spells out the conditions under the trucks can operate within the city limits. Food truck operators must obtain a city business license and a special mobile food vendor permit from city hall. Operators are also expected to pay the city’s occupational tax on wages paid while in the city limits.
Because vendors like ice cream trucks sell prepackaged items rather freshly cooked food, they are allowed to sell their wares from a vehicle as long as they have the required state permit. The ordinance restricts these types of sales to city streets which have both sides zoned residential.
The new law will go into effect after publication in the local paper tomorrow, which is just in time since the White Castle Cravemobile is scheduled to be back in Bardstown Thursday in the Lowe’s parking lot.
A planned Cravemobile appearance on Friday at Mitsuba on Withrow Court is in jeopardy, Mayor Bill Sheckles said in an interview after Tuesday’s council meeting. The new law requires food trucks to park in areas zoned for business, and the Mitsuba property is zoned for industrial use.
SCRAP METAL LAW. The council unanimously approved final reading of an ordinance to regulate businesses that buy scrap precious metals and other regulated commodities.
The new law is aimed at itinerant scrap buyers who travel the region and set up shop at a hotel to buy jewelry, coins, gold and silver for a weekend.
The ordinance will require any business in Bardstown that buys scrap gold, silver or any other regulated commodity to record full details of the transaction, including the seller’s identity and full description of the items purchased. The buyer is also required to enter the transaction on a website called Leads Online.
In other business, the council:
– gave final approval of a telecommunications system franchise that will allow Bluegrass Cellular to complete a fiber optic project and use portions of the city utility rights-of-way to do so;
– approved four certificates of appropriateness from the Historic Review Board;
– approved two Development Review Board recommendations;
– appointed Chris Ryan of Village Green Garden Center to a three-year term on the tree board.
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