The Madison Common Council proposed the State Street Night Vending program at a Feb. 13 meeting, where several members of the council and community spoke about its viability.
The proposal is part of the process to replace the current Late Night Street Vending program. The new program would change the hours of operation from 9 p.m.-4 a.m. to 8 p.m.-12:30 a.m. The proposal would also move all late-night food trucks from State Street to Library Mall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
The program is part of a five-year plan that began in 2018 to replace the current operation hours by April 15, 2024.
Street Vending Coordinator Meghan Blake-Horst told The Daily Cardinal the new program will provide more safety for both vendors and customers during late hours.
“Bringing all the carts together in one area will provide a way for vendors to support and look out for each other,” Blake-Horst said. “It will be in a location that is designed for vending and a safer pedestrian environment.”
The policy will also add vendors to the late-night licensing, which Blake-Horst said will help vendors adapt to changes together.
“This will be a big change for them,” Blake-Horst said. “We have been working to craft a new program that will fit the changing needs and dynamics of the community and downtown while focusing on safety.”
Other council members say that there were not enough credible safety concerns to place strict hours of operation. District 8 Alder MGR Govindarajan told the Cardinal he believes the new proposal will not be effective.
“When you check the police reports on the city, you don't really see many things,” Govindarajan said. “One specific report they were doing is that there was a car that went and drove onto a food truck…that would not take place at the State Street area because it's a pedestrian area.”
Maggie Jingga, owner of Jakarta Cafe, spoke at the meeting and said these changes would negatively affect her business at peak night hours.
“If we start 8-12, [we're] busy only about two hours, and then we have to close down,” Jinnga said. “This is no good because then we cannot do our operation [in the] hour that we sell the most.”
Jingga expressed concerns about missing both the dinner and late-night customers.
“I'm not interested in this,” Jingga said.
Govindarajan and District 2 Ald. Juliana Bennett said they are looking to revise the program to satisfy the wants and needs of vendors like Jingga and late-night customers.
Their proposal would allow food truck vendors to sell from 8 p.m.-2:30 a.m. to accommodate more customers — mainly students — looking to buy food.
Govindarajan suggested the shorter timeframe, which would prohibit sales after 12:30 a.m., was motivated by unease about dealing with students late at night.
“There's always been this kind of apprehension [from the city] about students going out and partying and just being students,” Govindarajan said.
When the proposal was first announced in 2018, Dan Kennelly, former manager of the city's Office of Business Resources, cited late-night behavior as a main reason for the new program.
"We of course agree that the food carts are not the root cause of this problem,” Kennelly previously told The Cap Times. “They’re serving food, but they do contribute to a reason for people to linger after bar time and that contributes to some of the negative activity.”
Govindarajan pushed back against this notion.
“It's not just students who are coming back from the bars who might be drunk,” Govindarajan said. “It's also the students who are up late at night and don't have a lot of food access. It's a freshman whose dining halls are closed at that point [that] needs food, cheap food maybe.”
The new program will go to the Vending Oversight Committee on Feb. 28 for referral to the Common Council meeting on March 5.
