Cold Lake, AB – After Council’s Corporate Priorities Committee made a recommendation to make changes to the placement of food trucks and mobile vendors at Kinosoo Beach, Council voted at their August 13, 2024 meeting to postpone the discussion so that the vendors’ current season would not be interrupted.

Council will consider further feedback from the vendors who appeared as delegation at the meeting and expressed their concern at the possibility of not being able to use parking spaces along 1 Avenue for their operations.

“With only three to four weeks of the summer season left, council did not want to make changes for mobile vendors who have already made business plans for their summer season, despite the Council committee making its earlier recommendation,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “We will revisit this discussion at a later date so that we can have a full discussion about all of the options available to us and put a solution in place for next summer, including the chance to allocate capital funding to make improvements for the mobile vendors.”

The City of Cold Lake has received some complaints about a lack of parking at the beach that can be taken up by mobile food vendors’ trailers. Some complaints have also mentioned noise from generators, the odours created by food vendor trailers, and the general aesthetics of having trailers parked in front of houses for the majority of the day.

Administration prepared a number of options for council to consider, including limiting vendors to the promenade on the west side of Kinosoo Beach, creating additional pads for use by mobile food vendors on a first-come-first-served basis at the beach, and the creation of another promenade by the urban forest that could provide a dedicated space for vendors.

“Mobile food vendors provide a valued service at the beach, which can see big crowds when the weather is right,” Copeland said. “We’ve heard from them that the promenade can be challenging to place a trailer in, and so we are looking at options to improve the space for their use or create a new space that vendors can easily access.”

Council voted unanimously to postpone the discussion until after the summer months so that the options presented can be further explored, while also ensuring that any decision can also be incorporated into the City’s 2025 budget deliberations.

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