Bartow County, GA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Bartow County regulates door-to-door and street-level selling as "peddling" under chapter 44, article V, and its definition of goods that can be peddled, at section 44-352, expressly lists food alongside brushes, vacuums, agricultural products and other merchandise, so a food vendor working a sidewalk or public area is peddling under the ordinance. Section 44-357(b) then draws a hard location line: peddling is banned outright on any street or highway right-of-way, on any bridges and sidewalks, on any public or governmentally-owned property, and on private property without the owner's permission.

That location ban applies regardless of whether the vendor otherwise holds a valid peddler's license, because it sits in the article's separate "prohibited locations" section rather than the licensing sections. on weekends, and none after sunset or before sunrise on any day. The ordinance carves out one narrow exception relevant to food sellers: stationary road-side stands selling agricultural products do not need a peddler's license at all, though section 44-357(e) still requires those stands to comply with the Bartow County Zoning Ordinance and other applicable rules, and bars them from public rights-of-way.

A food truck or cart operator planning to work public sidewalks anywhere in the unincorporated county should read this section as an outright bar on that specific location, not a permit-based restriction that can be cured by paying a fee.