The venerable Raleigh City Council votes today to decide the fate of food trucks downtown. There’s been a lot of back and forth on this issue, reports the N&O: food truck operators and people who would rather allow the food trucks the opportunity to offer them more food choices at a lower cost support relaxing the rules, while established restauranteurs want to use government force to entrench their market positions.

And just yesterday, our own Sara Burrows provided an excellent overview of the situation so far, as well as an outline of what will likely happen in today’s vote.

The New York Times recently ran a story about similar food truck battles happening all over the country. It includes a really wonderful sentence which encapsulates the uphill battle food trucks (and lots of other innovative small businesses in America) face:

 

So what’s a city leader to do? Legislate.