To foreigners, California is home to Hollywood, the Golden GateBridge, and Disneyland. To Californians, however, it is home to the best taco trucks around. But recently, in the small but growing community of Turlock, there has been a decision made by the town’s city council to ban food trucks within certain parts of the city.
Food trucks in Turlock are great sources of good food, especially when you are in a hurry or don’t have time to cook up something yourself. For a community filled with hungry college and high school students, taco trucks are a fast and an easy option, especially for those who don’t have much money.
On social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram, many users share their love and passion for these rare delicacies we call taco trucks. Tweets such as, “Craving taco truck” are not uncommon sights on the newsfeeds of many Turlock Twitter users.
Although new Mexican restaurant chains such as Freebirds and Chipotle have come into Turlock and offered new varieties of Mexican food, some people, such as Daniel Sperry, were “NOT IMPRESSED” with the quality of these chains. He stated, “Went to Freebirds for the first time, NOT IMPRESSED. Not worth my money. Chipotle and taco truck reign forever in Turlock.”
Lizzi Nickerson, junior, was in complete outrage over the ban against taco truck. She shared her feelings through harsh words of disbelief toward the beloved taco truck’s ban by stating, “They can’t just ban taco truck! Now all restaurants are going to be able to raise their prices because they have no competition!”
The ban that the City of Turlock made is not against the food trucks themselves, but their locations. Memo’s Cocina Owner, Karina Ramirez, argued that it is only fair that food trucks are banned from downtown Turlock. She explained that unlike food trucks, restaurant owners have to pay an extra 42 cents per square foot in taxes.
Ramirez told Fox40 news, “Nothing against any of the food trucks it’s just, it makes it hard for a business owner to price their items out around the same price.”
However, food truck owners countered that they have extra fees to pay as well, like multiple county inspections. Silvester Valencia gave his thoughts on the ban before the decision was finalized.
“They pay more but they have more labor, more employees. I work alone here.”
As of April 14, 2015, food trucks are not permitted in downtown Turlock anymore. Though the locations of the taco trucks in Turlock have been compromised, it all comes down to choice, which should be left up to the consumer. And in Turlock, as many citizens have made clear, the consumer loves taco truck.