It’s around 11 p.m. on a Wednesday night on Water Street in downtown Milwaukee. Vanessa Gonzalez is filling drink coolers inside her food truck, Mr. Taco. It’s parked across the street from Red Rock Saloon.
Every interior wall of the truck is covered in sheets of metal so shiny that you can see your own reflection. It makes the space feel much larger than it is.
The truck isn’t super busy yet, but as we talk, more and more customers come up to the food truck and place orders with the employees, Isaac and Noel.
This is one of the last nights Gonzalez and her crew will be working at this time of night. On May 9, a new ordinance will go into effect requiring food trucks to close at 10 p.m. if they’re operating in a two-mile area encompassing downtown.
They’ve traditionally stayed open until 1 a.m., so the change means hours of lost business.
I asked Gonzalez how much of her business comes in between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.
“About 80%," she says. "So by them stopping that, that’s a lot. That’s almost like you telling me I might as well just close this down.”
Food truck curfew aims to curb violence. Will it?
Milwaukee’s Common Council unanimously voted to change the curfew for food trucks in April.
Alderman Robert Bauman’s district includes downtown. He sponsored the ordinance, saying the earlier curfew is necessary to curb loitering and violence. A triple shooting in March near the intersection of Water and Knapp left one person dead. That’s just one block north of where Gonzalez's food truck operates.
When asked about the shooting, Bauman said no evidence has been made public that the people involved in that shooting were patronizing the food trucks.
Bauman says the area needs changes to make it safe for people visiting the bars and restaurants nearby.
“The bricks and mortars bars do a pretty good job of security. They’re not the problem," he said. "It’s these crowds of loitering underage people that seems to be the problem. Again, this is what MPD tells us — our law enforcement experts.”
Bauman says that he wrote the ordinance after receiving reports from the Milwaukee Police Department and nearby MSOE that food trucks were causing problems. MSOE Regent Kendall Breunig, who owns a nearby property at the Blatz office complex, testified in support of the ordinance at the city's public safety committee meeting on April 10.
“So far, there hasn’t been anyone injured from MSOE. But at the rate things are going it’s just a matter of time," Breunig said at the committee meeting. "Now the food trucks are not the problem. It’s the crowds that gather around them. Especially later at night.”
On social media, food truck patrons have criticized the city's move as failing to address the systemic causes of gun violence.
Food truck owner says changes will directly impact immigrant-run businesses
At Mr. Taco, Vanessa Gonzalez says she’s never felt unsafe working on Water Street. She regularly works until the early morning hours. She’s currently pregnant with her sixth child.
Gonzalez is frustrated with the city for failing to communicate the proposed changes to food truck operating hours. Only one food truck owner testified at the April 10 committee meeting where it was first introduced.
“Honestly I can tell you that I didn’t even hear about this until after it was in the news," she says. "One of the other food truck owners, after the bill went through and everything, reached out and said ‘Hey did you hear about this?’”
She adds that the trucks on Water Street serve a surprising variety of patrons. There are MSOE students who live in the nearby dorms, families visiting the city, people leaving church, Bucks fans heading to Fiserv Forum and, of course, bar patrons grabbing a bite before calling it a night.
While Gonzalez is Puerto Rican, her husband hails from Michoacán, Mexico. Their fusion approach surprises people trying Michoacán-style birria tacos for the first time.
And she says the new limits to food trucks will most directly harm the immigrant communities in Milwaukee trying to get businesses off the ground.
After ten years in the business, she’s worked with immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Ukraine and Mexico sharing their food with Milwaukee. Food trucks generally have fewer barriers to entry than starting a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
“When my husband started, he was an immigrant. So yeah, it started like that. A lot of people do start like that but some get lucky and some don’t," she says. "I have to say towards that perspective, that it is going to hurt a lot of immigrants. It is.”
'Fatty Patty' food truck owner files lawsuit against Milwaukee
On Thursday, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed suit against the city on behalf of Fatty Patty, a food truck owned by Abdallah Ismail that’s often parked next to Mr. Taco.
Ismail argues that the curfew threatens the businesses and livelihoods of Milwaukee residents. The Institute for Law and Liberty asks a judge to find Milwaukee’s ordinance violates the state constitution.
Alderman Bauman says Milwaukee’s city attorney reviewed and certified that the ordinance was legal and enforceable.
He added that he “would assume police will enforce the ordinance but that is ultimately left to their discretion.”
