Mount Pleasant, SC Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Section 156.498(J) lists eleven prohibitions that apply to every mobile vendor operating under the Town's mobile vending rules. The second prohibition is the general rule for public space: a mobile vendor cannot conduct sales on any public road, street, highway, or right-of-way. The same clause then narrows that ban with a specific carve-out for pushcart vendors, who may operate on a sidewalk located in a right-of-way as long as the sidewalk measures at least eight feet in width, wide enough to leave room for pedestrian passage alongside the cart.

Full-size mobile food vending units and mobile retail vending units do not get this sidewalk exception; only pushcarts qualify. The same subsection separately prohibits leaving any mobile vending unit unattended, storing or parking a unit overnight on any street or sidewalk, soliciting sales from people in motor vehicles, and operating loudspeakers or amplified sound to attract customers. A pushcart vendor using the sidewalk exception still needs the zoning permit and business license required elsewhere in § 156.498, and must clear trash generated by sales before leaving the location.

The Department of Planning, Land Use, and Neighborhoods must also be notified, with a new application and site plan, before a vendor changes where it operates.