Prince George's County, MD Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Sec. 12-115(c)(5) draws a sharp line between motorized food trucks and manually propelled carts. While the rest of Sec. 12-115 licenses food trucks to operate with a Health Department permit and Fire/EMS sign-off, subsection (c)(5) separately prohibits public vending of food from manually propelled mobile units on public rights of way anywhere in the County, closing off sidewalks, medians, and street corners to pushcart vendors regardless of licensing. The same subsection extends the ban to private property, so a cart cannot simply relocate to a parking lot or vacant lot to sidestep the rights-of-way restriction.

Two exceptions apply. First, a manually propelled unit may vend if it is authorized as a participant at a stadium, amusement park, or in conjunction with a carnival, festival, fair, or similar event that has been issued a Special Events Permit by the Department of Permitting, Inspections, and Enforcement, tying cart vending to a specific, permitted event rather than open-ended street sales. Second, the restriction does not reach a permit licensee operating inside a mixed-use venue whose core uses include the merchandising of retail, food, beverages, and entertainment, so long as the property management association has given its permission, covering vendors inside venues like food halls or entertainment complexes rather than on public streets. Motorized food trucks are governed by the separate application, identification, and inspection rules earlier in Sec. 12-115, not by this subsection's cart-specific ban.