Four years after the city of Whitefish imposed stricter regulations for mobile food vendors, the Whitefish Planning Board is recommending a change that would offer vending permits good for one year.

The change will be discussed tonight during a public hearing at the Planning Board meeting.

The City Council spent a year debating how to regulate temporary food vendors before agreeing in 2010 to a 30-day trial permit and two 90-day permits for a total of seven months in a calendar year.

At the time, a local diner owner opposed a pizza stand and two hot-dog vendors set up near his restaurant because he claimed the vendors were cutting into his business. The council put a moratorium on temporary vendors and directed city staffers to find a way to fix inconsistencies in the regulations.

Now the Whitefish planning staff is proposing an amendment to make the vending permits valid for one year, renewable if no issues have arisen. Another proposed change would eliminate the 30-day trial permit.

Planning Director David Taylor said in his staff report that the current system puts the burden on staff to track the expiration dates three times in a year, which is difficult to administer.

“Anytime during that year a permit can be revoked by the zoning administrator or City Council if the vendor does not follow all the conditions of approval, so a 30-day trial permit is not necessary,” Taylor said.

Limiting a certain type of business to seven months a year also could bring up accusations of unfair business regulations, he pointed out.

“Also, a food vendor can come in with a new application under a different LLC with a new business license after the previous one expires, enabling them to legally get around the seven-month-a-year limitation anyway,” Taylor said. “It seems much simpler to just allow them to operate year to year rather than constantly trying to figure out when their 30- or 90-day permits expire.”

Late-night food vendors have been part of the fabric of downtown Whitefish for many years, catering to the after-hours crowd on Central Avenue.

“A late night bratwurst or sandwich fills a need to help sober our hungry party people up before they find their way home when the bars close down,” Taylor said in his report. “Mobile vendors provide cheap food to go, which is a different product and experience than traditional sit-down brick-and-mortar restaurant businesses.”

Few eateries offer late-night menus after 10 p.m., he added.

Vendors are allowed to operated a total of six consecutive hours per day and carts must be removed by 3 a.m. There are currently two approved vendors operating in downtown Whitefish, and both have been there for several years.

In other business, the Planning Board will hold two public hearings dealing with proposed zoning text amendments.

One hearing is a request by the city to clarify the requirements for multiple uses on the same lot as they apply to conditional use permit criteria.

The other hearing deals with adding a definition of business services to permitted uses in the secondary business district.

The board will select a chairman and vice chairman.

Following the public hearings, a work session will focus on a review of the Whitefish growth policy’s future land-use map.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. today at Whitefish City Hall.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.