“Anybody asks me about this program — I feel like I’m going to vomit,” Pinder declared one sunny day last week in front of several customers lined up at her silver cart at King and Bay Sts.
“The city — Ã la Cart — bankrupted me.”
The retired mental health worker is not alone. Just one of the eight vendors selected for the pilot program is certain of returning next summer for the final year. Others have given up or are demanding concessions from the city to return. Several haven’t paid their 2010 location fees.
he ethnic food program — offering everything from bulgogi to souvlaki — is in a shambles.
So, how did a well-intentioned effort to reflect the diversity of Toronto through street food go so sour?
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Vendors say the health manager assigned to help them had no experience in hospitality or small business. Menu changes had to be approved by the city’s medical officer of health.
“When we asked for other changes, with the cart or location, we were told council would get a report once a year,” Bonivento says.
Hot dog vendors are overseen by municipal licensing and standards.
Filion, who in January 2009 predicted the vendors would earn “a very, very good income,” says public health was capable of running the program but acknowledges there were problems with the execution.
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From day one, vendors were wrapped in red tape. The original 15 in the program were reduced to eight after many balked at rigorous requirements, including the requirement that anyone who already held a hot dog licence had to give it up to participate; no signs allowed on the “uniform look” carts; a preference for “locally sustainable produced foods”; and a requirement that owners personally work the cart at least 70 per cent of its operating time (later reduced to 50 per cent).
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Above all else, vendors say, they failed because of the $30,000 cost of the carts and many other limitations. Instead of considering existing cart models, staff drafted a thick list of specifications and tendered for a custom-built version. Only one firm, Crown Verity, bid. The result was a cart that weighs 360 kilograms, is not towable, has a small countertop, a malfunctioning freezer and takes two people four exhausting hours a day to load and unload from a truck or trailer.
“You’ve told us we need to run a mobile business and you’ve provided us with a cart that’s immobile,” Bonivento says.
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“The biggest obstacle to success is the cart itself. You can’t fight that.”
Noorullah Iman, a father of five with a three-bedroom apartment and debts that threaten to bankrupt him, says he quit the program after realizing kebab and samosa sales would never cover his $1,500-a-month cart loan.
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Vendors complain they were given bad, unresearched locations with fees of up to $15,000 a year that had no basis in reality.
Last summer, Andnet Zere tried to sell Eritrean injeras at Roundhouse Park, south of the CN Tower, while mud flew from construction around her. Two authorized moves later, she quit.
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Sperling says the sites were chosen by a staff committee that considered “perceived pedestrian traffic.” Vendors were told the city did not do pedestrian counts or market research, and were encouraged to do their own homework.
(Read more from thestar.com)