Raleigh’s restrictions on food cart vendors won’t fix safety issues
When I began working at a popular late-night spot on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill in 2016, working until 3 a.m. became somewhat normal. My Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights for three-quarters of college were spent with beer dripping down my forearm and my feet dancing around puddles of condiments while grabbing credit cards from college students heading home from bars and parties.
Working food service until 3 a.m. isn’t easy to do, physically or emotionally — it’s still a job. It is a job that requires communication, conflict resolution skills and a dexterity to keep up with the inebriated, who tend to be forgetful, poor judges of time, and more emotionally volatile. It is an industry that accepts business owners with less hesitation, whether they don’t speak English fluently or taking it up as a second, supplemental income.
In November, Raleigh’s city council voted 7-1 to severely restrict the livelihood of the city’s business owners by moving up their curfew for food cart vendors, like hot dog carts, to 1:15 a.m. from 3 a.m. They say it’s an effort to keep people safe, but the problems and proposed solution do not align.
Back in September, the Raleigh City Council began discussions about just what to do about Glenwood South, the noisy strip of bars and restaurants where people go out on weekends. Their main concerns were the rowdiness; no one really likes waking up to someone passed out in their front yard, even if they know they live near the biggest nightlife scene in the Triangle.
The vendors are understandably worried; Waled Eldwik, who sells hot dogs and kebabs from his cart from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. on weekends, told INDY Week that he’s worried about his mortgage, since the majority of his business comes after 1 a.m. This was also how late night food worked on Franklin Street; if 2 a.m. is the state’s alcohol cutoff, people don’t really start leaving bars until well into the night.
Although carts will have to be off the road by 1:45 a.m., bars still close at 2 a.m. — meaning that the people police are most likely worried about, the drunkest and hardest to reason with, will still be in the area until 2 a.m., and still end up roaming around when the bars are shut down and they’re waiting for an Uber.
Getting rid of food carts isn’t going to solve the problem. The issues are different, according to who you talk to.
For residents, the issues seem to be noise, parking violations, and the litter or excrement left behind by partygoers. Raleigh’s city council and police department are saying it’s a safety issue.
From June 1 to Aug. 30 — 92 days total, with 52 of these days falling on a Thursday-Sunday — Raleigh’s police department reported 227 criminal charges in Glenwood South. The majority of these were for traffic violations like DUIs, reckless driving, and being too loud (141), followed by disorderly conduct (27) and drug violations (23). There were 56 simple assaults reported over that period; if you’re doing the math, that’s slightly more than one per weekend night, or about four a week.
Twenty-two guns were confiscated over this time period, and 13 aggravated assaults occurred. Considering that Raleigh is one of the biggest metro areas in the state, and Glenwood South is the biggest area for nightlife, these numbers are relatively low for a 92-day period that includes Fourth of July weekend.
If Raleigh residents are worried about illegally-parked cars (there were 1,600 traffic tickets given during this time), the city could implement a late-night bus system, park-and-ride program, or rideshare group that would either keep cars at home or keep them all contained in a single area, away from homes, where (sober) people coming from out-of-town could park. Chapel Hill had a bus system for college students called the P2P, which hit all the major dorms for folks who lived further out.
As for fights and more destructive crimes, it actually seems better to have more people around who are sober; it’s an added bonus to have ones who are helping people sober up by selling food and water, or who may have an established relationship with the customers. If food vendors have to disappear in the last hour bars are open, it really isn’t accomplishing the dissolution of crime and noise; it’s just punishing people trying to make a living.
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 4:42 PM with the headline "Raleigh’s restrictions on food cart vendors won’t fix safety issues."
