7-38-115 Operational requirements.
(a) Mobile food vehicles shall move from place to place upon the public ways and shall not be operated at a fixed location except as otherwise provided herein.
(b) Mobile food vehicle stops shall be made only to service customers and shall not exceed (i) a total of four hours or (ii) the maximum permitted period for parking, whichever is lesser, in any one block.
(c) No mobile food vehicle shall be equipped with any electronic sound-amplifying device. Permitted advertising devices shall be limited to bells, whistles, horns or other musical or noise-making devices which do not employ any electronic sound-amplifying device. Mobile food vehicles employing musical or noise- making devices shall only sound said devices when traversing the public way and shall be prohibited from sounding said devices while standing or parked.
(c-5) No mobile food vehicle equipped with a musical or noise-making device shall sound any such device at any location between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m., or at any time within 200 feet of a hospital, nursing home or while traversing any zone of quiet established under Chapter 10-8 of the Municipal Code.
(d) Unless specifically allowed in a mobile food vehicle stand, no sales from such mobile food vehicle shall be made between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.
(e) No operator of a mobile food vehicle shall park or stand such vehicle:
(i) within 20 feet of a crosswalk;
(ii) within 30 feet of a stop light or stop sign; or
(iii) adjacent to a protected bike lane.
(f) No operator of a mobile food vehicle shall park or stand such vehicle within 200 feet of any principal customer entrance to a restaurant which is located on the street level; provided, however, the restriction in this subsection shall not apply between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m.
Restaurant, for purposes of this section, means any public place at a fixed location kept, used, maintained, advertised and held out to the public as a place where food and drink is prepared and served for the public for consumption on or off the premises pursuant to the required licenses. Such establishments include, but are not limited to, restaurants, coffee shops, cafeterias, dining rooms, eating houses, short order cafes, luncheonettes, grills, tearooms and sandwich shops.
(g) Except as otherwise provided herein, no sale shall be made from a mobile food vehicle except from the curb side thereof, and then only when such vehicle is standing or parked in a legal parking spot.
(h) Mobile food vehicles that are being used to provide food and drink to persons engaged in construction in the City of Chicago and which are not equipped with noise-making devices are exempt from the provisions of (f) above, provided such vehicles are standing or parked in a legal parking spot.
(i) Any person who violates or resists the enforcement of subsection (c-5) of this section shall be fined as provided in section 7-38-128 of this Code for each violation. A separate and distinct offense shall be deemed to have been committed for each and every day on which any person shall be guilty of such violation; provided that, the intervening days between when a license holder whose license has been suspended applies for restoration of the license and a reinspection has been conducted by the Department of Health shall not constitute separate offenses if the violation was found to be corrected upon reinspection. A motor vehicle that is used in a second or subsequent violation of subsection (c-5) of this section shall be subject to seizure and impoundment under this subsection (i). The owner of record of such vehicle shall be liable to the City for an administrative penalty of $750.00 in addition to fees for towing and storage of the vehicle as provided in Section 9-92-080. Whenever a police officer has probable cause to believe that a vehicle is subject to seizure and impoundment pursuant to this subsection, the police officer shall provide for the towing of the vehicle to a facility controlled by the City or its agents. Before or at the time the vehicle is towed, the police officer shall notify any person identifying himself as the owner of the vehicle at the time of the alleged violation or the person who is found to be in control of the vehicle at the time of the alleged violation, if there is such person, of the fact of the seizure and of the vehicle owner's right to request a preliminary hearing to be conducted under Section 2-14-132 of this Code by serving such person with a copy of the vehicle impoundment seizure report. Section 2-14-132 shall apply whenever a motor vehicle is seized and impounded pursuant to this section. A violation of any provision of this section other than subsection (c-5) shall be punishable under Section 7-38-575.
(j) Mobile food vehicles shall be operated only by the mobile food vehicle licensee or by an authorized employee of such licensee.
(k) (1) No operation of a mobile food vehicle is allowed on any private property unless all of the following requirements are met:
(i) The mobile food vendor has obtained the express written consent of the owner or lessee of such property and such written consent is kept in the mobile food vehicle at all times when the vehicle is on the property;
(ii) The mobile food vendor is in compliance with all applicable requirements of the Chicago Zoning Ordinance; and
(iii) The mobile food vendor is in compliance with subsection (b)(i) and, except for the private property that allows the operation of the mobile food vehicle, subsection (f) of this section.
(2) Notwithstanding any other provision in subsection (k)(1), no operation of a mobile food vehicle is allowed on a privately-owned: (i) vacant lot, or (ii) lot with a vacant building. For purposes of this subsection, the term "vacant building" has the meaning ascribed to the term in Chapter 14X-2 of this Code.
(l) Each mobile food vehicle shall be equipped with a permanently installed functioning Global- Positioning-System (GPS) device which sends real-time data to any service that has a publicly-accessible application programming interface (API). For purposes of enforcing this chapter, a rebuttable presumption shall be created that a mobile food vehicle is parked at places and times as shown in the data tracked from the vehicle's GPS device.
(m) An operator of a mobile food vehicle operating at the staging area, as delineated by the Commissioner of Aviation, of O'Hare International Airport shall be exempt from the requirements of paragraphs (b) and (f) above. The Commissioners of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection and Aviation shall have authority to jointly designate any other exempt location(s) on O'Hare International Airport property, provided that: (i) they conclude that such location(s) will not interfere with traffic or public safety, and (ii) they conclude that such location(s) are appropriate for mobile food vehicles based on the objective conditions and circumstances at each such location, and (iii) no such designation shall include an airport terminal. The Commissioner of Aviation is hereby authorized to assess a fee of $200.00 per year, subject to escalation at the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) on any operator of a mobile food vehicle at O'Hare International Airport and to adopt rules to govern the operation of such mobile food vehicles.
(Added Coun. J. 6-10-96, p. 23652; Amend Coun. J. 9-5-01, p. 66021, § 1; Amend Coun. J. 7-26-06, p. 81824, § 2; Amend Coun. J. 7-25-12, p. 31326, § 2; Amend Coun. J. 9-24-15, p. 6984, § 4; Amend Coun. J. 4-19-17, p. 46742, § 1; Amend Coun. J. 7-26-17, p. 53252, § 1; Amend Coun. J. 12-13-17, p. 63286, § 3; Amend Coun. J. 11-7-18, p. 88803, § 15; Amend Coun. J. 4-10-19, p. 100029, Art. II, § 91; Amend Coun. J. 7-24-19, p. 3646, § 6; Amend Coun. J. 1-15-20, p. 13000, § 6; Amend Coun. J. 7-22-20, p. 18957, § 4)
