With many Franklin County and North Quabbin towns lacking bylaws specific to food trucks, some municipalities are looking to neighboring communities to find models that have proven successful.

Randy Crochier, cooperative public health service program manager with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, explained food trucks have exploded in popularity among restaurateurs since the COVID-19 pandemic, possibly because they are easier to staff. He said more bylaws could be in the pipeline if this trend continues.

“But it could just be a fad,” he said. “You can’t just open a restaurant anywhere in a town, so it makes sense that you can’t park a food truck [anywhere] you please.”

Boards that have recently discussed the regulation of food trucks include the Bernardston Planning Board, the Shelburne Planning Board and the Orange Selectboard.

Discussion of a particular food truck operating on private property in Orange prompted that town’s Selectboard to discuss the possibility of adopting a zoning bylaw, as neighboring Athol did in 2019, regarding such businesses being on town property.

Orange Selectboard member Julie Davis made the suggestion following a lengthy discussion at the July 24 meeting and her colleagues voted unanimously to declare that the town government, pending any future bylaw, imposes no limitations on where a food truck can be on public land.

Orange Town Administrator Matthew Fortier noted that food trucks are not mentioned in the town’s zoning bylaws. Selectboard Clerk Andrew Smith asked what types of permits are issued to food trucks, to which Fortier replied there is no specific food truck license but any food vendor needs to obtain a food permit through the Board of Health.

The Athol zoning bylaw Davis referenced was adopted at a Town Meeting five years ago, though Town Manager Shaun Suhoski stressed to the Greenfield Recorder that food trucks are also regulated through the usual food permit process managed by the Board of Health. The Worcester County town’s bylaw defines a mobile food vendor as “any person who travels from place to place upon public ways and dispenses food from a food truck, food cart, beverage/coffee truck, ice cream truck, canteen truck, catering truck, breakfast truck, lunch truck, lunch wagon or any other mobile food vehicle.”

Mobile food vendors are exempt from the bylaw if they operate at a special event approved by the Athol Selectboard, operate as an accessory use to an outdoor municipal use (including but not limited to public beaches and playing fields) or recreational use on town-owned property that has been leased to a nonprofit, or cater a private event in any town zoning district and will not stay on that property more than 48 hours.

Athol’s mobile food vendor definition does not apply to any mobile food vehicles that move from place to place and are stationary for no more than 30 minutes at a time, or ice cream trucks that move from place to place — excluding areas prohibited by town bylaw — and are stationary for no more than 10 minutes.

Similarly, the Shelburne Planning Board was drafting a food truck bylaw, based on the one in Amherst, with hopes of getting the language included on the Annual Town Meeting warrant in May.

“It wasn’t ready,” explained Faye Whitney, administrative assistant to the Shelburne Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals.

She recounted the matter came to light when there was a question as to whether a food truck was allowed to set up shop on Bridge Street. She also said she expects the Planning Board will make another attempt at crafting a proposed bylaw in time for the next Annual Town Meeting.

“As I understand, they’re going to work on it again for next year,” Whitney said.

Consideration of a food truck bylaw remains in the early stages in Bernardston, too. The Planning Board plans to deliver a presentation to the Selectboard on Wednesday, Aug. 7, to begin discussions. The meeting will start at 6 p.m. at Bernardston Town Hall.

“We had our Town Meeting and we agreed to develop a policy that was a little more specific to food trucks,” said Bernardston Planning Board Co-Chair Peter Nai. “We don’t have any [food truck] bylaws currently, so once we meet with the Selectboard we’ll have a better idea of where we are going forward.”

Nai explained the desire to adopt a bylaw for food trucks came after a citizen’s petition was submitted to change the language of the existing restaurant bylaws to include food trucks. The petition proposed that the definition of “restaurant” be “any business establishment, temporary or permanent, principally engaged in the retail sale of food, drink or refreshments, whether prepared on or off the premises.” However, the citizen’s petition ultimately failed at Town Meeting, with Planning Board members voicing their intention to take up the issue of defining mobile food trucks in a separate category in the zoning bylaws.

Nai said the Planning Board is looking to create a separate policy on food trucks to not “water down” the existing bylaw for restaurants.

“There may be a bigger need for food trucks, especially in this economy where people can’t come up with financing for restaurants,” Nai said of the need for a separate food truck bylaw.

In the county seat of Greenfield, food trucks operating short-term (fewer than eight days in a year) at events such as music festivals do not need a vendor license. However, ones operating for a short term but not at an event and not in association with an establishment holding a common victualler license must get a vendor license from the city’s Board of Licensing Commissioners. Food trucks operating eight days or more in a calendar year are required to get a vendor license.

All food truck vendors must obtain approvals and permits from the Greenfield Health Department and, in some instances, fire inspector and other relevant inspectors, regardless of whether a vendor license is required.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120. Staff writer Erin-Leigh Hoffman contributed reporting.