Palm Desert, CA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Chapter 5.99 of the Palm Desert Municipal Code covers food sale from pushcarts. A pushcart is a wagon, cart or similar wheeled container that is not a Vehicle Code vehicle, and vending includes the movement or standing of a cart on any sidewalk, street, alley, highway or public place while searching for, obtaining or soliciting sales. Each cart needs a vendor's permit plus any business tax, license or permit required under other chapters of the code, under § 5.99.030.

The director of code compliance takes the application, collects a nonrefundable fee set by city council resolution, and has the health officer and chief of police investigate. The director approves or denies within thirty days after the application is filed, and grants the permit within ten days after receiving health officer and police chief approval if the listed requirements are met. The permit term is annual, renewable for a fee set by resolution. Operators are listed with identification numbers, dates of birth, known convictions and proof of being at least eighteen. A denied applicant can appeal to the city council.

Section 5.99.110 sets the street rules. Carts cannot be stationed where they obstruct vehicular or pedestrian flow, within ten feet of any intersection, driveway or building entrance, or in a parking space. A cart is at most six feet long and four feet wide, carries only signs affixed to or painted on the cart or its canopy, has no artificial lighting, and has a refuse bin of at least one cubic foot. No loudspeaker, public address system, bells, chimes or other sound-making device is allowed.

Section 5.99.100 adds that no vendor can cause more than three pushcarts to assemble for pickup and delivery, no one can vend within one thousand five hundred feet of the nearest property line of any school property, and no cart can stay at one location longer than ten minutes at the request of a bona fide purchaser. Section 5.99.140 requires liability insurance of one million dollars combined single limit, no aggregate, naming the city as additional insured.