Now the city is reviewing vendor ordinances of neighboring towns.

Mayor Robert Briggs asked Maclure to be patient as the city considers its options.

“[Dark Corner Diner was] the first applicant we’ve had for street vendors and since you, we’ve had several others,” Briggs said. “If you’ve been keeping up with what other cities are doing around us – Greenville, Spartanburg and Asheville – it got to be a problem and so what the cities did was they had to come up with an ordinance to deal with vendors and that’s where we’re at.”

One of several points of consideration is the use of city power. Maclure’s initial agreement with the city allowed her to connect to city power through a lamppost on N. Trade Ave. three or four hours, once a week.

Maclure said she had previously worked out an agreement to use city power so she would not have to rely on a loud generator, which she said would negatively impact the atmosphere at the food truck and potentially cause noise grievances for surrounding businesses.

“I’ve always offered to pay for the power; it’s a minuscule amount of power,” Maclure said.

Mayor Briggs agreed the amount of power used by Maclure was expected to be so small the city did not request payment for its use. He said that amount would change, however, if more than one vendor requested to use power.

“If 10 or 15 wanted to use our power it could be a problem,” Briggs said. “We need to come up with a fair policy that is positive for everybody … Give us a little bit of time to come up with that ordinance.”

Briggs added that Landrum is looking at creating an ordinance governing what vendors can and cannot do within city limits, but said they aren’t sure yet what that ordinance would entail. Council members recently instructed Martin to look into other surrounding ordinances for guidance.

Mayor Briggs said Maclure would be allowed to continue operations at the end of Trade Street by the gazebo until further notice.

“I think the goal is to redo their vendor ordinance. They say the reason is other vendors are trying to get into the city – not just food vendors, but other vendors – and they say they want to be fair to everybody, which I understand,” Maclure said.