St. Joseph County, IN Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Sidewalk & Mobile Vending (2026)

Chapter 110 of the St. Joseph County Code of Ordinances regulates roadside selling in a subchapter headed Roadside Sales, and three short sections do all of the work. Section 110.20 is the flat ban: no person shall sell produce or merchandise on or along the public roadways and within the public rights-of-way in the county. The ban covers produce and merchandise alike, so a fruit table, a pickup bed of sweet corn, a food truck service window and a folding-table display of goods all fall inside it when they sit in the right-of-way. The test is where the sale happens, not who the seller is or how long the stand stays open.

Section 110.21 is the route to lawful roadside selling on private ground. A seller who works in the open, out of trucks or from roadside stands, on property adjacent to public roadways or public rights-of-way, must have provided parking space for at least three motor vehicles off the public roadway and outside the public right-of-way. The wording bars the sale unless that space has been provided, so the three-vehicle parking area has to exist before the first customer is served.

Section 110.22 puts a duty on the customer. No person shall park on or along any public roadway and within the public right-of-way for the purpose of shopping or purchasing produce or merchandise from any person who is selling in the open, from a truck or from a roadside stand. The section targets the parked shopper, so a driver who pulls onto the shoulder to buy from a stand is the person it covers.

All three sections date to Ord. 7-3-1972, and their history notes cite 1981 Code §§ 8.12.010, 8.12.020 and 8.12.030. Chapter 110 also contains a separate transient merchant licensing subchapter, §§ 110.01 to 110.08, run through the county auditor. The definition in § 110.01 excludes anyone who grows the goods sold and anyone who makes crafts or items by hand and sells them, but those exclusions are written for that subchapter only. They do not lift the right-of-way ban in § 110.20 or the parking duties in §§ 110.21 and 110.22.