Southaven, MS Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Chapter 7 of Title VIII treats every itinerant seller the same way. Sec. 8-156 defines a transient vendor as anyone who transacts transient business in the municipality in one location or by traveling from house to house, street to street or place to place, and the definition expressly reaches a vendor who travels on foot or uses a motor vehicle or other means of conveyance. A transient business is one carried on for a period of less than six (6) months in each calendar year.

The ban sits in Sec. 8-163(g): transient vendors and transient businesses are prohibited from selling their products on any public right-of-way or vacant lot within the city. Sec. 8-163 and the exceptions in Sec. 8-167 print no carve-out for a sidewalk cart. The code offers a site-based model instead. Under Sec. 8-163(d) sales are confined to ground zoned planned commercial (C-4) or planned unit development (PUD) with C-4 underlying uses, and Sec. 8-159(b) requires the property owner to hold a right to vend permit.

Utilities are tightly limited. Sec. 8-163(h) bars any connection to or use of the property owner's utilities and bars temporary utility poles. Sec. 8-163(i) requires every transient vendor to have a generator, and a mobile push cart or mobile food preparation vehicle must have self-contained utilities that are integral to the vendor unit.

Sec. 8-163(e) sets operating hours between thirty (30) minutes after official sunrise and thirty (30) minutes before official sunset, as published by the United States Naval Observatory. Where food is sold or dispensed, Sec. 8-163(d)(8) requires sanitary facilities that meet DeSoto County Health Department requirements, and Sec. 8-163(f) requires compliance with building and fire codes and any inspection the city orders. Sec. 8-165 requires the vendor to post the state sales tax number and the transient vendor license number in letters and numbers not less than one (1) inch in height.