Ban On Food Vendors At Evanston Beaches Gets Pushcart Carve-Out

EVANSTON, IL — The City Council moved closer to loosening its ban on lakefront food vendors Monday as alderpeople granted preliminary approval to a proposal to permit pushcarts at the beach.

Evanston City Code presently forbids "peddling food" — or anything else — within 100 feet of public parks without the direct authorization of the city manager's office. A violation of that or any of the city's other beach regulations carries with it a potential $500 fine.

Following a referral from Ald. Devon Reid, 8th Ward, city staff drafted amendments to the code that would explicitly allow city officials to grant permission to food vendors to operate at the beach, while keeping the ban on the sale of other merchandise by the lakefront.

Reid introduced the proposal last month, citing its potential to generate revenue to offset the cost of gradually making beaches free for all Evanston residents.

"This can be undone if it does not work out. If it creates unforeseen issues, we can make amendments to this in years to come," Reid said at the June 28 meeting. "This will just give us an opportunity to see, to make real-time adjustments for next year as we will begin to rely on this more."

Ald. Melissa Wynne, 5th Ward, said the move was premature. Wynne and 7th Ward Ald. Eleanor Revelle placed a hold on the proposal, pushing the vote back to Monday.

"If we want to make changes on the lakefront, I would support engaging in another lakefront master plan, but I don't want to do this piecemeal," Wynne said last month.

"This is something that we really need to take time to take input to get community participation in," she said. "If we're going to be transparent and believe in having stakeholders participate in these significant decisions, because certainly our parks and our lakefront are something that Evanstonians care very deeply about, then we have to follow our process."

While the initial plan would have allowed motorized or horse-drawn food trucks to have been granted city permission to operate at the beach, Reid amended it Monday to only allow human-powered pushcarts.

"While I appreciate the fact that this would address the big environmental impact of food trucks, it still is working toward commercialization of the lakefront, and we still are likely to have a litter problem," Revelle said. "So I'm afraid I'm still opposed."

Ald. Tom Suffredin, 6th Ward, said it did not make sense to use the specter of refuse as an excuse to keep food vendors off the lakefront.

"I do want to make it clear that we presently have a trash problem without any food service on the lakefront," Suffredin said. "So it's unfair to throw that out there as a boogeyman as a reason to not consider this."

Asked how to improve the existing garbage situation at Evanston beaches, City Manager Erika Storlie said the city could hire all-day roving trash monitors rather than relying on trucks to come and pick it up, but any solution would likely come with a cost.

"The biggest issue is that people don't actually put the trash in the can," Storlie said. "Then we have the trash blowing all over the park overnight and into the lake, which is very tragic."

Councilmembers voted 6-2 to approve the amended proposal, with Wynne and Revelle opposed. The City Council is due to consider final approval of the changes at its July 26 meeting.

Under the proposal, city staff plan to award contracts for the 2022 summer season following a request for proposal process.

Staff also plan to pursue some way for the city to receive sales tax from lakefront food vendors. This year, the only revenue the program would generate for the city is the licensing fee collected.

RELATED: 'Racist' Policy Repealed: Evanston Beaches Now Free On Weekends