John Turley-Ewart: Toronto doesn't need street food socialism

A measure of a great city is its street food. Stroll the Saturday morning outdoor markets in Paris, Frankfurt, Munich or Rome and you will find farmers hocking their produce alongside the kitchens of mobile gourmets that whip up tasty dishes for passersby who wash down a quick snack with their favourite Chablis.
On the streets of New York the famished will find not just hot dogs, but gyros, South Indian food with da shells and spicy veggies, chunky Texas chili, falafel, tacos, goat stew, jerk chicken and more. In Toronto, Canada’s largest city, you can buy a pre-cooked, reheated hot dog and, if you want to get all fancy, wash it down with a ginger ale. Visitors to Toronto can be forgiven for thinking the city’s street food is, for a lack of a better word, pedestrian.
In June some at Toronto City Hall realized that provincial regulations prohibiting street vendors from selling anything but pre-cooked dogs was a tad 1950s and should be changed. Spearheaded by city councillor Joe Filion, the denizens of Hog Town were led to believe a wider selection of street food choices was on the way; that enterprising chefs who don’t have the financial resources to start a restaurant, just the talent and know-how to prepare great tasting food, would find new opportunities to generate a livelihood and add to Toronto’s foodie culture.
But on Wednesday Toronto revealed it’s hand. Variety will come at a price. Toronto wants to introduce street food socialism.
In what is being spun as a bid to keep Big Food from taking over Toronto’s streets, Mr. Filion and his City Hall supporters are using Big Government to try and manage what is best left to the free market.
Toronto’s budget committee wants to buy 35 specially designed street food carts at a total cost of $700,000 that will be leased only to owner-operators who must fork-over $450 a month until the $20,000 cost of the cart is paid off. Moreover, Toronto will sell space on the carts to advertisers retailing electronics, cars and other consumers items. Who will repair the carts and what will be done if vendors don’t make their payments are “details we don’t have all worked out yet,” according to Mr. Filion.
If you are an enterprising vendor who wants to sell empanadas, can buy a cart for $4,500, and who simply wants to advertise your own company brand, you are out of luck. Toronto wants to dictate how you do business, who you do business with and the cost of doing business. Such is a recipe for failure.
Great cities are not in the food business. They encourage its growth by creating environments where entrepreneurs, regardless of their means, can flourish while ensuring public health standards are met. That Toronto’s municipal government thinks it needs to get into the street food business, says a lot about why Toronto is a long way from being the great city it should be.