Montreal hipster foodies get ancient street food ban reversed

 The ban on hot-dog squeezing in Montreal streets has been enshrined since midway through the last World War.

Future hippie eco-do-gooder food vendors

 But now for the first since since 1947, you'll soon be able to buy hot dogs, roasted chestnuts or any of delicacy from street vendors in Montreal, assuming that someone peddling such eats is nearby. 

  And you'll have to thank the eco-friendly, asparagus-eating back-to-earth hippies for the flip-flop.

 They're the ones who prompted the out-of-the-blue announcement strongly hinting at a future abolition of the street food ban, made a few days back by city hall.

 Among the main reasons - or excuses if you will - cited for the longstanding ban is health issues: inspection is apparently too difficult to undertake on vehicles that might be able to escape you by riding down a narrow alley. 

 But other cities have overcome that issue by having a team of inspectors paid through permit revenues, for example in Vancouver it costs about $1,000 a year to have a cart, which usually sell hot dogs or some variety of sausage sandwich. 

  But what wasn't addressed in this announcement is that the city relinquished control of this issue in 2002. That's when the newly-unified city announced that it would allow each borough to decide its own policy on street food. A few months later Ville Marie decided to decline would-be vendors the right to sell. Nobody seems to know or care what other boroughs did. 

  I asked a mayor's rep Darren Becker to explain why the city is now issuing press releases on an issue that it gave away over a decade back. Here's his reply. 

What`s new this time is the city's executive committee has mandated the city's economic development commitee to study the question. This is the first time that a city-wide strategy or approach to the issue of street vendors has been proposed. As you pointed out, the Ville Marie borough studied the dossier in 2003 and subsequently decided to nix the idea of allowing food vendors. It's premature to say what recommendations the committee will come up in terms of allowing vendors and to comment on jurisdictional matters. What I can say is that the administration wants to have a full overview of the situation before making any decisions although Deschamps has already stated that he is favourably considering the possibility of allowing street vendors on Montreal's streets.

  So I called the Ville Marie borough to ask how they feel about the city honing in on one of the issues they have in their charge. A rep wrote me back with a note telling jam-packed with endorsements of various healthy-eating initiatives that have patroled city streets over the last few years. Here's the reply I received from Ville Marie rep Anik de Repentigny:

In recent years, the street food has gained popularity worldwide. This fits perfectly with the spirit of Montreal as a creative, festive and gastronomic city. That is why the Executive Committee of the City of Montreal has appointed the Permanent Commission on the Economic and Urban Development and Housing to investigate the sale of food on public property. Although the sale of food on public property has been prohibited since 1947 in Montreal, several experiments have been attempted in Ville-Marie in recent years. Here are some examples: the entertainment district is home to several meals during festivals; Foodlab the Society for Arts and Technology moved to the Place de Paix within the MUTEK festival; Fruixi the project, which concerns the sale of fresh fruits and vegetables by bicycle scooters in residential neighborhoods, appeared in the streets of the borough in 2011. This year will include Fruixi at Place Émilie-Gamelin every Thursday from 11 am to 15 from July 5 to September 30; >Pop-up processor, a mobile culinary Avenue, fresh and original, this is Monday through Friday from 11 am to 14 pm at Place Émilie-Gamelin this summer. The six Chow Street trucks taking part are: Grumman 78 (tacos), Lucky's Truck (braised meat sandwiches), Crepe me! (pancakes), New Palace (kitchen grade), No pig in my living room (meat and fish cooked on charcoal) and The Manger (sandwich inspired by trips). These experiences of selling food on public property were authorized, by ordinance, the borough council. 

  So the tone seems to be that eco-friendly, do-gooder, nutritionally-aware hipsters have managed to leverage the positive response that mustard-smeared mustachioed deli-guys from overseas were unable to elicit in years of lobbying. 

  Hopefully the city won't only issue permits to vendors promising to serve up only yogourt and wheat grass.