There’s been a lot of talk recently about how DCRA & MPD have hired multiple officers to dedicate to enforcing DC food truck laws & regulations. Almost every other day, I see a tweet about a food truck being late to lunch because they were just pulled over on the street to have their permit checked. The latest incident occurred just yesterday when DC Empanadas was stopped and released while en-route to their lunch spot. It takes a lot of time and effort to construct a food truck that is compliant with food safety code and then requires additional effort to acquire all of the inspection certificates. One could reason that the seemingly extreme checking of permits and food truck regulations enforcement is here to protect those DC Chefs who have gone through all of the trouble to get the correct permits.
But, it is also bittersweet to see the enforcement activity actually working when an out of town marketing campaign wants to serve free coffee out of a truck. As in the case of the SeamlessWeb Free Coffee Days marketing campaign, where passerbys were able to grab a free cup of coffee and a discount coupon to use with their online food delivery service, MPD asked the truck to pack things up and also fined the truck for not having a valid permit.
Just another day of drama on the DC food truck scene! 
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