50 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

That thing still runnin'?

[Holden West]

I saw it a few weeks ago, but I don't know if it was operating or if someone just bought it to drive around, just like hippies buy old school buses.

I've never seen it in operation. It would be a big hit downtown (if it were allowed?).

[G-Man]

What are you guys talkin about? what chip wagon?

[gumgum]

I miss the chip wagons out east...and my lebanese food.

[VicHockeyFan]

What are you guys talkin about? what chip wagon?

Mobile fish & chips and burgers etc. It used to be parked on the Chews TV lot on Burnside a lot. All hand-painted signs etc. Real tACKY.

[Mike K.]

There was such a place in Esquimalt just off of Old Esquimalt Road near L'ecole Brodeur. Amazing food. Amazingly greasy.

[VicHockeyFan]

What are you guys talkin about? what chip wagon?

Like this but WAY less professional:

[Holden West]

Yep, it's pretty shabby. "fresh fish" and "hygiene" aren't words that come to mind looking at The Chip Wagon.

[Willa]

There is a serious lack of street food here in Victoria. Where is the street meat? Where are the shwarmas? Hmmmm, I miss that from Ontario.

[G-Man]

The city only has 7 street vendor food licenses and they want to get rid of those. They think that they hurt the restaurant business.

[bcradio]

One you try some food from a real chip wagon, these concerns will go out the window!

Yep, it's pretty shabby. "fresh fish" and "hygiene" aren't words that come to mind looking at The Chip Wagon.

[Holden West]

Outback food trailer for sale. You could park outside Wharf St. and siphon off the drunk crowd and if it got rowdy you could drive off before the cops came and the blame would go to Pita Pit and The Joint.

http://www.pin.ca/bc...622/default.htm

[Ms. B. Havin]

Just to revive the street food vendor issue for a bit, Toronto city council has been mulling this over (there are three articles on this, in the Toronto Star, the Globe&Mail, and the National Post). The National Post has the most complete article, I'll reproduce below. Some funny bits in it (love the references to socialized sausages, etc.), and interesting differences between how Canada tends to overregulate basic stuff, and then sort of gets mired and stalls and goes nowhere...:

City council officially endorses street-food pilot project
Posted: January 29, 2008, 10:26 PM by Barry Hertz
Politics

City council has officially endorsed the broad strokes of a healthy street-food pilot project, despite concerns the experiment has become so complex and loaded with policy objectives it might not be ready for this summer.

The Post's Kelly Grant reports:
Complaining the 15-cart program had morphed into a bureaucratic nightmare, one councillor even tried to kill the program and replace it with a licensing scheme similar to the one that governs Toronto’s hot dog vendors.

“When government tries to involve itself in small business, it’s a recipe for disaster. I mean this city gets far too involved in regulation of everything,” Denzil Minnan-Wong, a right-leaning councillor, said.

“I was in Philadelphia just recently and I had a cheese steak and it was fantastic. But I didn’t have to fill a form out in triplicate to get served.”
Mr. Minnan-Wong’s motion failed, 22-12.

The street-food program began last summer with a campaign to bring menu items other than hot dogs and sausages to Toronto’s curbsides. The idea won near-universal support, but the way the city has since tried to implement it has attracted criticism.

City officials and Councillor John Filion, the project’s champion, first tried to borrow $700,000 to build, own and control 35 vending carts. The Mayor’s influential executive yanked the money and sent the plan back for further study.

With no cash at their disposal, city staff pitched an alternative approach that would see the municipal government “control” the carts and pick the vendors, but ask a private company to design, build and finance them for a pilot project with no fixed time frame, at no fixed price.

Mr. Filion argued this would allow the city to achieve no less than half a dozen policy objectives — including branding Toronto, providing entrepreneurship opportunities for refugees without start-up capital and reducing diabetes in needy neighbourhoods — at no cost to taxpayers.

None of this was necessary to bring hot dog vendors to Toronto streets, Mr. Minnan-Wong said.

“We didn’t have access and equity for sausages. We didn’t need a fair wage policy for condiments. None of these things were necessary,” he said. “I don’t think we need socialized spring rolls, I don’t think we need fairness for fajitas.”

Yesterday, Mr. Filion added another wrinkle to the plan: It now allows for a “charitable foundation” to make a donation to pay for the carts. He said he had spoken with a willing group whom he declined to name.

In the end, the package council adopted yesterday simply allows city staff to seek “expressions of interest” from potential cart manufacturers and to speak with charity groups weighing a gift to support the program.

After that, there are more questions than answers. For example, on the floor of council Mr. Filion insisted the city would not own the vending carts. “The city is not purchasing carts, the city will not own the carts, we’re not setting up a bureaucracy to own a street cart business,” he said. “What I really want to talk about is the good things about this program.”

Speaking to reporters afterward, he admitted that if a charitable donation wound up paying for the carts, the city would own the carts, at least for now.

Asked to provide a straightforward explanation of what happens now that council has green-lighted the first stage of the pilot, Mr. Filion paused: “Well, I wish I could,” he said. “It depends partly on whether we have some outside funding. That will make things much easier.”

Photo of Bloor and Yonge hot dog vendor by Glenn Lowson for National Post
http://network.natio...ot-project.aspx

[G-Man]

Sad that this seems to be a canadian problem.

I mean what rationale does Victoria have for only licensing 7 vendors across the city? I also believe there is a plan in place to slowly decrease this amount.

I have heard that people think that these businesses hurt restaurants but really if you are considering buying a hotdog on the street and faced with no hotdogs are you going to go into Earls? No.

If the city wants to bring in some extra cash why not lease prime spots on public land (cough... centennial square Cough).

[davek]

Sad that this seems to be a canadian problem... I have heard that people think that these businesses hurt restaurants ...

Whenever I have heard of a movement to license mobile food vendors, it has been largely driven by restaurant owners.

As to it being a canadian problem, we United Staters loves us some regulations...

http://www.reason.org/ps361.pdf

[Koru]

If its the same chip wagon I'm thinking, that red and white thing...By day it served food...by evening ( i hope there is no members of the VPD or SPD on here!) haha...the chip wagon was the after hours booze dispensing unit. When I was just coming up to graduating high school I rode Kabuki Kabs for a spring and summer and of course the nature of the business the beer parties when we'd park the bikes at 2 - 3am in the morning were always rampant back at the shop. If we ran out of booze it was a simple call to the chip wagon and we had flats and flats more of beer...ohhh to be an irresponsible teenager again

[VicHockeyFan]

There is still an after-hours beer delivery service in town. I find it hard to believe the authorities don't know about it. It's not the chip wagon though, it's named after a mammal.

[Ms. B. Havin]

^ Platypus?

[VicHockeyFan]

No. It's the fastest land animal.

It's a great play on words: The get to you fast, and they are "Che(a)t"ing.

[Holden West]

^Busted by VHF:

Liquor-delivery service shut down

By Keith Vass - Victoria News

Published: June 30, 2008 3:00 PM
Updated: June 30, 2008 3:39 PM

Two men are charged with illegally selling alcohol after Victoria police shut down a liquor-delivery service last month.

The service, called 'Cheetah Express', took phone orders from customers for beer and liquor despite not having a liquor sales license, said police spokesman Sgt. Grant Hamilton. Many of their customers were underage, police allege.

The men, aged 50 and 56, are free on promises to appear in Provincial Court Aug. 8.