The Toronto Street Food Project seeks to cut some city hall red tape

The last year or so has seen a relative flourishing in Toronto’s once-moribund street food scene. But the barrier to entry for anyone wanting to set up a street-side or mobile dining operation remains high. To try to change this, a group of street foodies—including Suresh Doss of Food Truck Eats, Hassel Aviles of the Toronto Underground Market and Marianne Moroney of the Street Food Vendors Association—have launched The Toronto Street Food Project, a social media initiative aimed at getting City Hall to relax its regulations. As Mark Macdonald writes on his Toronto Food Trucks site, “Currently our by-laws cannot support a vibrant and diverse street food culture no matter how many entrepreneurs are standing ready.”

Those looking to participate have two options: they can either tweet their councillor, or, if their representative lives in the Dark Ages isn’t on Twitter, they can send them a pre-written letter via email. Most of the heavy lifting is done for you—even the tweets are pre-written (just in case penning your own 140 characters is too much of a slog). While we’ve only seen a handful of the tweets floating around so far, this sounds like a perfect campaign for Rob Ford, fresh off his embarrassing transit loss, to champion: it’s a chance to shrink government a little bit, and a vote he might actually be able to win.

• Introducing the Toronto Street Food Project [Toronto Food Trucks]
• Toronto Street Food Project Website

(Images: Food Truck Eats, Renée Suen; Toronto Underground Market, Caroline Aksich)