Anchorage

Parking rules shut down Anchorage's winter food truck meet-up

A parking problem shut down the Fireweed Take In last month, adding to the latest woes of the Anchorage food truck scene.

In October the food truck meet-up -- designed to offer a winter gathering spot for mobile food trucks in Anchorage -- was shut down by the city over a lack of parking spots.

The take-in didn't last long. It opened Oct. 1 and by Oct. 26 had been closed by the city. Event organizer Darrin Huycke said it's just the latest challenge Anchorage food trucks have faced in the effort to expand their presence.

"We've had a dark cloud kind of following us each time we try to expand and evolve the food truck idea," Huycke said Monday.

The idea for the take-in was people could buy meals from the two or three trucks parked outside, then bring it into the building that used to house Maxine's Fireweed Bistro to eat.

The issue? The food trucks were occupying parking spaces in front of the building, which only has spots for 15-20 cars. Rich Fern, lead land use enforcement officer for the municipality, said that's already less parking than the city requires for a building of that size. But the building, built in the 1950s, is grandfathered into older parking laws.

That allowed the building to be occupied by the Greek Corner and, later, Maxine's Fireweed Bistro. But because food trucks take up more space than a normal vehicle, it made an already tight space even more so.

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Fern said he inspected the parking lot himself. He said the large trucks generally take up between two to three spots and that people turning off of Fireweed Lane would have had difficulty navigating through them.

Fern said he's sympathetic to the food trucks -- he thinks the take-in was a great idea -- but the location was not suitable.

"It became a safety issue, really, is what happened," he said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Huycke said he and Urban Bamboo owner John D'Elia looked at possible options for keeping the operation open. Fern suggested they talk to other businesses about working out sharing of parking spaces. But Huycke said it would have taken two to three weeks to resolve the issue, and the financial factors, like paying rent, made it difficult to work out.

So organizers decided to suspend the take-in indefinitely.

Huycke said trying to expand the presence of food trucks in the city has been a frustrating endeavor. He said the public has been supportive when it comes to the vendors, but they find little local government help.

He noted food trucks are not a new concept in Anchorage. Their number has expanded significantly since 2012. In 2012, 37 food trucks were registered with the city. By 2014 it was up to 76.

With the growth, there's also been tension. An effort to allow the trucks downtown to feed Anchorage bar patrons led to some work group meetings suggesting options, but final resolution on the issue never came. Food trucks often struggle to find places to park, encountering challenges from both the city and private business owners.

"I feel like we need to be able to make it so these people can succeed," Huycke said. "They're not going to be able to stick around if the muni only allows them to come out for those occasional events they need support for. That's not going to feed a family."

Suzanna Caldwell

Suzanna Caldwell is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News and Alaska Dispatch. She left the ADN in 2017.

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