A tangled web of zoning regulations makes operating the Denver Cupcake Truck no piece of cake, the truck’s owner says.
Denon Moore, who launched the truck as a mobile arm of her Cake Crumbs Bakery in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, says the blue and white mobile purveyor of sweet treats will remain parked this month because of conflict over city zoning laws.
“We’re just going to shut it down in January and try to problem-solve this,” Moore said.
Moore said the truck was licensed in April as a “food-delivery truck” and operated with no problems until November, when she says zoning-enforcement officials began telling the truck’s drivers that they could not be parked without city permission.
Getting definitive answers about what the truck was or was not allowed to do was frustrating, so Moore decided to shut down the truck rather than risk the fines she says enforcement officials threatened.
Moore said the truck rarely parks in one spot for more than two hours unless hired for a specific event. She said she was told by the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses that the truck could park anywhere as long as the parking spot was legal and not within 200 feet of a competing business.
Moore said she originally sought to classify the Cupcake Truck as an ice- cream truck but that city officials advised her against it because of complex laws involving dairy regulations.
Julius Zsako, communications director for Denver Community Planning and Development, said laws governing mobile-food vendors have not changed in nearly 20 years.
He said mobile-food establishments such as the Cupcake Truck are permitted to operate only on private property and with written consent from the property owner. Zsako said such establishments can operate for no more than four hours in one spot. Ice-cream trucks are permitted to operate on side streets, or “streets without lines.”
“It’s something we all enjoy,” Zsako said of Denver’s mobile-food vendors, “but it is a traffic-safety matter.”
