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

Gilroy City Code Section 16A.13 defines a "mobile vending facility" broadly, any portable container, pushcart, stand, vehicle or wagon used for displaying, selling or offering for sale food, goods or services, and then draws a hard zoning line: such facilities are prohibited from operating in the city's commercial zoning districts known as C1 Neighborhood Commercial, C2 Central Commercial and C3 Shopping Center Commercial. Outside those districts, no one may place, maintain, conduct, park or allow a mobile vending facility to stand within city limits without first getting a written mobile vending permit from the chief of police, in addition to any identity permit required under Chapter 16A, Article I.

Not every mobile setup needs the permit. Catering vehicles invited onto private property solely to serve the property owner's own tenants or employees, nonmotorized pushcarts selling food on a paved private sidewalk in a commercial zone where permanent public restrooms are available with the owner's written permission, temporary fireworks stands, pumpkin patches and Christmas tree lots operating no more than 30 days before the relevant holiday, and short nonprofit or charitable sales capped at three consecutive days per six-month period are all exempted under Section 16A.13.

Section 16A.15 layers on location limits that apply wherever a permit is required: no facility may stand on private property without the owner's written permission, or on a street within 300 feet of an elementary or junior high school's property line. Even a permitted vendor may stop for a purchaser for no more than ten minutes at one spot before moving at least 100 feet away.