‘What do food trucks have to do with crime?’ North Philly vendors say new curfew enforcement may wipe them out.

Latino food truck owners in North Philadelphia say their businesses may not survive enforcement of a curfew mandating they close by 11 p.m.

Many of the food trucks in the area operate overnight, serving affordable Dominican and Mexican food to people who work the graveyard shift — including SEPTA drivers, truckers, and police officers — and area bar patrons.

Councilmember Quetcy Lozada introduced the original curfew, which reduces the late-night hours of some businesses, in January 2024, and vendors say enforcement of an expanded version started this spring. Lozada saw the curfew as a way to increase safety and crack down on so-called nuisance businesses, like unlicensed smoke shops and corner stores with rows of slot-like gambling machines, in parts of Kensington.

The councilmember said the effort was so successful at reducing crime that she expanded it to other parts of her district with a bill the mayor signed in August. (Police department statistics say that violent crime in Lozada’s 7th district decreased by 45% in the last 28 days compared to the previous month, but is up by 40% for the year to date compared to last year.)

Many of the food truck owners in Lozada’s district say they feel betrayed by the councilmember’s agenda.

“What do food trucks have to do with crime?” asked Jose Lora, the owner of the truck Delicias Dominicanas, after unpacking Country Club Merengue, the Dominican national soda, on a recent Tuesday evening. Lora has maintained his truck at the same spot — the corner of West Hunting Park Avenue and North Front Street — for the past 11 years, he said. Until recently, he typically served food until midnight, and had stayed open until 4 a.m. before the pandemic.

Lora is a member of the Latino Food Truck Association, a new group of roughly 50 food trucks in the Kensington/North Philadelphia area that formed in response to the curfew enforcement.

Frank Rosario and Damaso Rodriguez, two leaders of the food truck association, calculated that their members have received at least 26 curfew citations, totaling more than $13,000 in fines, in the last few weeks.

It’s not clear how many curfew citations were issued in total; the Philadelphia Police Department, which is leading the enforcement effort, did not respond to requests for comment.

Ramon Mezquita runs the popular truck Zurdo Fritura on an industrial stretch of West Hunting Park. He received his first $500 citation for violating the curfew in March. He said that he had not heard anything about the new rules prior to being fined.

Mezquita, who was a professional chef in the Dominican Republic before immigrating to the United States, has run Zurdo Fritura for eight years, cooking and selling Dominican-style chimi, yaroa, and tostones from 6 p.m. until 3 or 4 a.m.

In the weeks since enforcement began, Mezquita racked up six more tickets, totaling $3,500. He also lost about 75% of his revenue because of the shorter hours, he said. He’s now caught in a catch-22: If he keeps Zurdo Fritura open past the curfew, he risks another citation. But if he closes early, he has limited income.

“I mean, we don’t even make the money to pay those tickets yet,” Mezquita said. Sometimes after a police officer issues a ticket, he’ll reopen the truck and continue serving food just to make enough money to afford ingredients for the next day, he said.

Lozada said vendors shouldn’t be losing much revenue — according to the Philadelphia Code, most street vendors citywide are only allowed to operate between 7 a.m. and midnight, and the new curfew simply moves the closing time to 11 p.m.

In practice, many food trucks have operated overnight for years without consequence because the Department of Licenses and Inspections carries out inspections during the day shift.

“Every single one of them had been breaking the law for a long time,” Lozada said.

Food truck operators and mobile vendors near Drexel University’s campus in University City experienced a similar feeling of whiplash in March, when the school said it planned to enforce a raft of city vending laws that the vendors said would force them out of business, upending a yearslong status quo.

Lozada said the time of lax enforcement is over.

“There was no enforcement for many years in the 7th Council district,” said Lozada, who replaced former Councilmember Maria Quiñones Sánchez in 2022. “I think people got very comfortable… and just felt like they didn’t have to abide by the law.”

Lozada said while she saw “no direct correlation” between food trucks and crime, she worried that “as a result of them operating late into the evening hours, the patrons they attract sometimes are involved in criminal activity.”

Vendors said that’s not the case.

“We know our customers aren’t bad people,” said Enerolisa Rojas, the longtime owner of the Camilo Hispanic Food Truck. “Mothers come with their young children, even at 1 a.m., especially during summer vacations.”

The new enforcement efforts have sent ripples of fear through the community.

Rojas worries that she may have to lay off the dozen people she employs between her truck and restaurant if she cannot operate overnight, since that’s when the majority of her customers show up.

The new enforcement was particularly ill-timed, she said, because summer is their busiest season. Since the curfew enforcement began, she said, she’s lost 80% of her revenue due to the shorter hours. And it’s made her feel like a criminal.

“When 10:50 p.m. strikes, we are all looking over our shoulders, just in case the police arrive, when we are just trying to work,” Rojas said.

The Latino Food Truck Association is trying to find a compromise that would allow the trucks to operate as they always have.

Rosario, a community activist who is helping to spearhead the nascent organization, proposed opening a late-night Latino food truck park in North Philadelphia, similar to the overnight market that was pitched for Fishtown. (That market was indefinitely postponed just before it was set to open).

Rosario called food trucks a boon to the city. The small businesses offer healthy, affordable food in food deserts and pay thousands of dollars in taxes, he said.

Now vendors “feel as though they’re being targeted, just because they live in a neighborhood that doesn’t have as much money as other neighborhoods,” Rosario said.

Restaurants with liquor licenses or chains that serve food only through drive-through windows, like McDonald’s and Wendy’s, are exempt from the curfew, which the small food truck vendors see as a sign of inequality.

Tensions escalated on Thursday afternoon, when L&I and the Philadelphia Police Department towed 16 vehicles and shut down 10 vendors in Kensington and North Philadelphia.

Shemeka Moore, a spokesperson for L&I, said the operation was unrelated to the curfew, and had to do with businesses that were unlicensed, parked illegally, operating illegal electrical hookups, or displaying other “hazardous conditions.” Peco said the company was called in to assist with the enforcement, but there were no illegal hookups.

Lozada said her office was not involved with the L&I crackdown and that she’s investigating what happened.

The effort alarmed the Food Truck Association; some members saw the towings as possible retaliation for speaking out about the curfew. In a video that circulated quickly among residents, a food truck vendor begged police officers not to tow her truck and then collapsed to the ground in distress.

Anyone who voted for current city officials “has been completely violated,” Rosario said.