Photo by Amber Wilkie

The association representing the city’s food trucks says that new regulations proposed will the city will drive them out of downtown D.C., the place where they make most of their money.

A new version of the regulations that have been debated for the better part of a year would establish 23 mobile vending zones where food trucks could vend without worrying about feeding the meter or being chased away by police. Still, spots in those vending zones—many of which are in some of the city’s busiest lunch spots—would only be doled out by lottery, leaving food trucks that lose out the option of either finding a parking spot outside of a 500-foot radius around the zone or merely go elsewhere in town.

While city officials defend the regulations as a way to balance the needs of the food trucks against those of traditional brick-and-mortar restaurants, the Food Truck Association of Metropolitan of Washington says that they will simply push food trucks to places where they won’t be able to make enough money to survive. According to a map published by the association, huge chunks of downtown D.C. will simply be off limits. (The map is below.)

“Food trucks who do not win a lottery spot will have few places to go,” said Doug Povich, chairman of the association and co-owner of the popular Red Hook Lobster Pound food trucks. “The bottom line is that, if enacted, the proposed regulations will severely limit consumer choice, force many food trucks out of business, and put many food-truck employees out of work.”

D.C. has been trying to write new regulations for food trucks since early last year, but different variations have drawn complaints from different stakeholders. Restaurant owners say that food trucks operate free of many of the regulations that they have to contend with, while food truck owners tend to argue that their attempt to bring their wares to the hungry masses are regularly complicated by existing rules that don’t match the times and over-aggressive enforcement by parking officers and police.

A D.C. Council committee will hold a hearing on the proposed regulations on April 30.