PRESS CONFERENCE: TODAY, 11:30am, Downtown Evanston - near Fountain Square (Davis St. & Sherman Ave.)
Contact: Daniel Anthony (773) 750-1031 Daniel@IllinoisPolicy.org
Hot, Fresh and Fighting: Food truck operators sue City of Evanston Young entrepreneurs say restrictions are arbitrary, unconstitutional
PRESS CONFERENCE: Tuesday, Aug. 7 at 11:30am Near Fountain Square (Davis St. & Sherman Ave.) in downtown Evanston
EVANSTON (August 7, 2012) — Two young entrepreneurs are prohibited from bringing their food truck to Evanston because of an arbitrary, anticompetitive ordinance. So they’re seeking to have the restriction struck down in court.
When James Nuccio and Gabriel Wiesen launched their food truck, Beavers Donuts, they were simply following their dreams. And they’ve received a warm reception: local governments from Chicago to the suburbs either already welcome food trucks or are working to update out-of-date regulations, and their hungry customers are grateful for the coffee and gourmet donuts they supply.
But despite their success elsewhere, James and Gabriel are not allowed to operate in Evanston. That’s because Evanston’s City Code only allows owners or agents of existing brick-and-mortar restaurants to operate food trucks there. That restriction doesn’t serve any legitimate health or safety purpose – Beavers Donuts fulfills every other licensing requirement – but serves only to protect one group of established business owners from creative competition.
“The Illinois Constitution guarantees equal protection and due process under the law,” said Jacob Huebert, Associate Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, a public interest litigation center that is representing the entrepreneurs. “But Evanston isn’t treating people equally. The City is giving restaurant owners a special right that it won’t give to everyone else, for no legitimate reason.”
For an exclusive first look at a short film produced to highlight the story behind this case:
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The Liberty Justice Center, a project of the Illinois Policy Institute, is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest litigation center that fights to protect economic liberty, private property rights, free speech, and other fundamental rights in Illinois and beyond. First and foremost, the Liberty Justice Center seeks to ensure that the rights to earn a living and to start a business, which are essential to a free and prosperous society, are available not just to a politically privileged few, but to all. The Liberty Justice Center pursues its goals through strategic, precedent-setting litigation to revitalize constitutional restraints on government power and protections for individual rights. Visit LibertyJusticeCenter.org.
PRESS CONFERENCE: Tuesday, Aug. 7 at 11:30am Near Fountain Square (Davis St. & Sherman Ave.) in downtown Evanston
Contact: Daniel Anthony (773) 750-1031 Daniel@IllinoisPolicy.org
