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Why Doesn't Chicago Have Its Own Food Carts?

By Melissa McEwen in Food on Mar 3, 2015 8:00PM

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Street vendor from The Assocation of Street Vendors at a 2009 protest against vendor harassment (Tim Bell/Creative Commons)

When we posted about the Halal Guys coming to Chicago someone on Facebook quipped “Why are we promoting a NYC business on a Chicago-centric site?” Well, because they are expanding to Chicago and expanding a business that started as a food cart with a cult following. Unless the laws change, we'll never see a business like this in Chicago because food carts are illegal here, with a few exceptions only for fruit and frozen desserts.

A new video highlights one of these nascent businesses that is harmed by our laws, a food cart run by Claudia Perez:

When Claudia came here from Mexico, she did so because she believed her life would be better in the U.S. She had faith in the story of the “American dream” and her chance at capturing it. But Claudia has been consistently harassed and threatened by the police. She has been arrested twice. Her children have been arrested too, when they were teenagers helping out with the tamale business. Officials have thrown away her food, calling it garbage.

The Institute For Justice wants to change this, spearheading a campaign to legalize food carts. And there is also a petition you can sign as part of the No Cronies campaign. Maybe someday we’ll have our own Halal Guys?