Columbus, IN Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Section 5.04.070(D) of the Columbus Municipal Code, adopted by the Common Council of the City of Columbus, Indiana, lists the areas where a licensee cannot sell or offer for sale any products, merchandise, food or beverages. The stated reasons are traffic congestion, pedestrian hazards and other safety factors.

One-way streets: no selling on any one-way street, alley or portion of one between six a.m. and six p.m. The restriction does not apply on Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, so a weekend vendor can use those streets.

Schools and parks: no selling on any street or alley within five hundred feet of the property line of any public school, parochial school, public park or public playground. The distance runs from the property line, not from the building or the playground equipment.

Major roads: no selling on any state highway within the city limits, on any four lane street in the city limits, or on Central Avenue, Washington Street, Jackson Street, Brown Street, Eighth Street, Eleventh Street, Sixteenth Street and Twenty-Second Street.

The same section, subsection C, adds that sales from any vehicle are not permitted on any alley or on any street other than those designated in the thoroughfare plan as local or collector streets, or on other streets the board of public works and safety designates from time to time. In practice a Columbus food truck is confined to local and collector streets that are outside the five hundred foot school and park buffers, and that are not four lane. The board of public works and safety can add further streets to the list.

The code is a street and sidewalk licensing rule. It does not address private lots, and zoning for those sites sits in the separate joint Columbus-Bartholomew County zoning ordinance, which is not part of this code.