Howell, NJ Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Howell Township confines mobile food vending by purpose, distance and time. The definition in § 223-1 says mobile retail food establishment licenses are issued for the specific purpose of providing necessary service to construction sites and isolated industrial locations. Mobile food establishments shall not operate within 1,000 feet of any permanent retail food establishment, except those renting space at markets and special functions, which are not governed by the 1,000 foot requirement. Section 241-6B repeats the same distance rule.

The time limit comes from two printed provisions. A temporary location is any location where a mobile food establishment or vendor conducts business for a total cumulative period of no more than one hour in any twenty-four-hour period, commencing at 12:00 midnight (§ 223-1). Section 223-9D prohibits solicitation or peddling for more than one hour in one location within any twenty-four-hour period, commencing at 12:01 a.m., unless the Township Council expressly permits it. An interruption or removal of equipment, vehicles or wares does not start a new period.

Parks are closed to licensees. Section 223-9E bars any licensee from soliciting goods or services, including food, ice cream and soft drinks, in any municipal park or other place of recreation or cultural activity, or on a public street or right-of-way adjacent to one, unless the governing body of the Township of Howell specifically authorizes it. Section 223-11 bars itinerant merchants and transient vendors, licensed or not, from selling from roadsides or parking lots except as provided under § 223-2B and 9D, and § 223-4D limits licensees to a vehicle parked immediately adjacent to the curb of a public street in a permitted locality, with no double parking and business on the curb side only.