[URBAN NOTE] "City rules on street sales drive food cart owner bananas"

[rfmcdonald]

Toronto's problems with managing non-traditional street food, the Toronto Star's Jessica Botelho-Urbanski notes, have not gone away.

A woman who's selling chocolate-covered-frozen-banana treats by tricycle is feeling too ticked to ride as she tries to navigate what she says is the city's confusing licensing structure.

The High Park resident spent about $25,000 to get her chocolate-covered-frozen-banana-on-a-stick-treat business, coco-bananaz, up and running. After jumping through what she called too many hoops at city hall, she plans to shut down the tricycle-based operation for the season.

In a strongly worded letter to Mayor John Tory’s office, Stanleigh expressed her disillusionment.

“Toronto appears to be against innovation, against any sort of change, ‘CLOSED for business,’” she told Tory. “Why does a small entrepreneur have so much difficulty gaining access to information, markets and opportunities in this city?”

[. . .]

“I’m totally flabbergasted," she said. “It’s a maze to try and get through, and it shouldn’t be this way. It should be clear, it should be easy, and they should give people who are trying to start small businesses access to the market.”