Multnomah County Mulls More Requirements For Food Cart Pod Property Owners

By Meerah Powell (OPB)
Sept. 24, 2019 7:30 p.m.

The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners will consider an ordinance Thursday to standardize health and safety requirements for food cart pods.

Currently, individual food carts must supply their own clean water and electricity as well as address things like pest control and wastewater and trash disposal. This new ordinance would shift those responsibilities to food cart pod property owners and operators — requiring them to provide those services to vendors.

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“We’ve had issues over the last couple of years just with the sheer number of food carts that have been popping up and then landing on sites that are really not designed for a food cart operation,” said Jeff Martin with the Multnomah County Health Department.

Many food cart pods reside on empty lots with no attached utility services, he said, and food pod property owners are under no obligation to provide those services.

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“This [ordinance] kind of puts in that standard of having those basic utility requirements available,” Martin said. “It also puts some standards in to address when issues do occur.”

The ordinance aims to make it easier to respond to wastewater spills, for example, by requiring property owners and operators to provide clean-up plans.

“Say when you have a wastewater leak on the ground. Instead of trying to figure out who specifically did it when you have 30 or 40 food carts on one site …  the pod owners are required to ensure it’s cleaned up in a timely fashion,” Martin said.

The ordinance would also require property owners to ensure proper setbacks, or space, between carts, in order to prevent fire from spreading if one were to occur.

The Multnomah County Health Department has been working on the ordinance for nearly two years, convening a large workgroup of food industry professionals, property owners and health officials to finalize safety recommendations.

The Board of Commissioners will hear public testimony on the ordinance during Thursday’s meeting.

If passed, the new rules would go into effect in January. At that point, pod owners would need to obtain a license and come into compliance with the new rules.

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