Cleveland, OH Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Chapter 675's operating rules for street vendors, § 675.09, govern every "vending device", a term the chapter defines to include carts, stands, trailers, and other equipment used to display or sell goods (§ 675.01(a)(8), § 675.05(i)). Section 675.09(b)(4) sets a hard size ceiling: no vendor may sell or display merchandise from a vending device larger than 22 feet in length and 8 feet in width. Placement is tightly restricted too, absent a contrary determination by the Director of Capital Projects reflected on the permit, a cart cannot sit where the sidewalk is under 10 feet wide, within 10 feet of a crosswalk, within 20 feet of a doorway, within 50 feet of another permitted location, or within 25 feet of a restaurant doorway (§ 675.09(c)).

Vendors cannot chain merchandise displays to utility poles, planters, trees, trash containers or other sidewalk fixtures (§ 675.09(d)), and must keep the device out of any portion of the street designed or ordinarily used for vehicular travel (§ 675.09(b)(2)). Two device-specific operating duties matter most for cart owners: § 675.09(h) bars leaving a vending device unattended at any time, leaving it on a sidewalk between midnight and 6:00 a.m., or transacting business from it during those hours; and § 675.09(j) requires a mobile vendor to park the cart, equipment and merchandise adjacent and parallel to the curb whenever stopped to make a sale.

Mobile vendors must also obey any lawful police order to move the cart (§ 675.09(k)) and cannot make loud noise to draw attention to their merchandise (§ 675.09(l)).