Fountain Valley, CA Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Fountain Valley Municipal Code § 10.44.150 is the street-parking rule for food vehicles in the City of Fountain Valley. Subsection (a) bars anyone from standing or parking a vehicle, wagon or pushcart from which goods, wares, merchandise, fruits, vegetables or food stuffs are sold or offered for sale, or any lunch wagon or eating car or vehicle, on any portion of any street. The single exception is a stop made only at the request of a bona fide purchaser, for a period not to exceed ten minutes at any one place. Delivery from a store or other fixed place of business, on order or by agreement with a customer, is outside the rule.

Subsection (b) adds a permit layer: no person can park or stand a lunch wagon, eating cart, vehicle or pushcart selling tamales, peanuts, popcorn, candy, ice cream or other food on a street without first obtaining a written permit from the traffic committee, and that permit designates the specific location where the cart stands. Under subsection (d), a permit holder cannot use any location other than the designated one. A conviction in any court of competent jurisdiction for violating the section means the traffic committee revokes the permit as soon as the record of conviction is filed, and no new permit issues to that person until six months have passed from the revocation. Anyone denied a permit or aggrieved by a traffic committee decision can appeal in writing to the City Council through the city clerk (§ 10.68.010).

Do not confuse this rule with Chapter 4.90, which regulates sidewalk vendors. Those vendors work from non-motorized receptacles no larger than three feet high, three feet wide and three feet long (§ 4.90.050(e) and (f)), so a food truck does not qualify. Chapter 4.90 also fixes distances that show how tightly the city zones vending: no vending within one hundred feet of a school, place of worship or child day-care facility, within two hundred feet of a public safety facility, or on any public property that is not a sidewalk or pathway, including a street, alley, park or parking lot (§ 4.90.060(c)). Stationary sidewalk vending is prohibited in residential areas, and vending of any kind is prohibited between ten p.m. and seven a.m.