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

Article XVI of Chapter 20 regulates food trucks, ice cream trucks, nonmotorized pushcarts, and street vendors, and Sec. 110 sets the operating restrictions specific to pushcarts and vendors selling on foot. Stationary vending is barred outright in locations zoned exclusively residential. Vendors may not operate within any city park or recreation facility if doing so causes an objective health or safety concern, obstructs public enjoyment of the park, or creates an unreasonable concentration of carts that interferes with the park's scenic character. Setback rules keep carts and vendors at least twenty feet from any driveway and forty feet from any intersection so customers and equipment don't block traffic, and vendors may not set up on a sidewalk or street adjacent to a curb painted white, yellow, blue, or green.

A two-hundred-foot buffer applies near intersections listed as 'High Collision Intersections' in the city's Vision Zero Action Plan, and the same two-hundred-foot buffer, measured from the school property line, applies near any K-12 school, public or private. Space itself is capped: no vendor or pushcart may occupy more than twenty-four square feet, vending areas must stay clear of utility boxes, fire hydrants, tree wells, and bus stops, and a three-foot gap is required between neighboring carts. Vending on private property requires a temporary use of land permit under the zoning code.

Selling alcohol, controlled substances, or any other item illegal under federal, state, or local law is an independent ground for immediate permit revocation by the deputy city manager or city engineer.