AMHERST – A lunch cart serving hot dogs, hamburgers, ribs and breakfast sandwiches will operate in downtown Amherst this summer.
But even though the Select Board on Monday approved a permit for Buster’s, concerns were raised by board members about whether the full-size trailer, which measures 7-feet wide by 16-feet long, and needs to be towed to its location, is too large to operate on sidewalks, rather than from on-street parking spaces.
“I don’t know how we can approve it when we don’t know where it can go,” said Select Board member Constance Kruger.
Board member Andrew Steinberg observed that a vehicle towing Buster’s trailer would likely have to be the sidewalk before the trailer is unhitched and set up.
But Chairwoman Alisa Brewer said Buster’s manager, Joshua McPherson of West Hartford, Connecticut, will have to work with town staff to figure out how the lunch cart will operate, and that the license should not be held up out of worries that the trailer will not fit on a sidewalk.
Though larger than a conventional lunch cart, and more like a food truck, McPherson told the Select Board he would prefer that his cart be allowed on sidewalks as they are more favorable locations throughout the heavily trafficked pedestrian areas than parking spots.
This echoes concerns raised earlier this year by Sun Kim, owner of Sun Kim Bop, a food truck specializing in Korean food, that there are limited places to park, such as the west side of Town Common south of Spring Street, west side of Kendrick Park and north and east sides of Sweetser Park. These spots are also distant from where most people are walking.
Peter Hechenbleikner, interim town manager, said Buster’s will need to leave at least 3 ½ feet for pedestrians and wheelchairs to pass by on the sidewalk.
The latest approval for a lunch cart, the fifth issued in 2016, comes as Economic Development Director Geoffrey Kravitz continues to examine possible revisions to the rules, arguing in a memo to the town manager that Amherst does not yet have a food truck culture.
“The fact that only one of the lunch carts is reliably in town provides evidence that those already licensed don’t see enough of a market to locate here on a consistent basis,” Kravitz wrote in his memo Friday.
Since 2012, 10 lunch carts have been licensed, but only three have gotten permits beyond one year. That includes New York Halal Food, a car that has regularly been set up on the sidewalk in front of the Unitarian Universalist Society at the intersection of North Pleasant Street and Kellogg Avenue.
The others currently licensed are Top Dogs hot dogs and Dean’s Beans Organic Roasting Co.
Hechenbleikner told the Select Board that Kravitz has done a lot of work, but he is not yet ready to make recommendations about major changes to the rules until he speaks to those who run lunch carts.
While Kravitz presented some minor possible changes, such as creating some new spots where proprietors could set up and a reservation system to ensure available spaces, he notes that these “are not likely to result in a significant increase in the number of lunch-cart applicants.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
