Everett, MA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Section 12-41 of the Revised Ordinances of the City of Everett, Massachusetts, is the licensing rule for itinerant food sellers in this Middlesex County city. It covers any person who goes from place to place in the city selling, bartering, carrying or exposing for sale any fruits, vegetables, meat, butter, cheese or fish, whether from a cart, wagon, other vehicle or in any other manner. The license comes from the board of health, not the Everett City Council. Two groups are outside the rule: a person licensed under M.G.L. Ch. 101 sec. 22, and a person who sells only fruits or vegetables raised or produced by himself or his family, or fish obtained by his own or his family's labor.

Section 12-42 gives the board of health authority to issue the license to any person of good repute for morals and integrity. Under Section 12-43, these licenses date from and expire on the first day of May of each year unless revoked sooner, and the fee schedule printed there lists Mobile Vendor at fifty dollars ($50.00). Section 12-21 also requires a hawker or peddler to record name and residence with the board of health before selling the articles it enumerates.

Operating rules follow in the same article. Section 12-22 prohibits crying wares in a public street and bans bells, horns or other noise-making instruments to announce a sale. Section 12-23 requires vehicles and receptacles to be neat, clean and non-leaking, with a board of health agent inspecting them once a month. Every licensed hawker or peddler is assigned a number and must wear an approved badge conspicuously (Section 12-24), and each vehicle must carry the licensee's name and number on each side in letters and figures at least two (2) inches in height (Section 12-25). Weighing and measuring devices must be inspected and sealed, with a monthly re-inspection (Section 12-26). A seller who stops on a public way to solicit or sell also needs the police permit described in Section 12-28.