Smyrna, TN Food Trucks & Mobile Vendors: Vending Zones (2026)

Section 9-105 of the Smyrna Municipal Code controls where permitted vendors can work in the public streets of the Town of Smyrna, Tennessee. The code has no separate food truck or mobile food vending section, and it does not use those terms. Vendors who go from place to place selling goods, wares or merchandise fall under Title 9, Chapter 1, which covers peddlers, street barkers, solicitors and transient vendors, and § 9-105 applies to every permittee under that chapter.

The section makes three rules. First, no permittee has any exclusive right to any location in the public streets, so a permit does not reserve a spot. Second, no permittee can be permitted a stationary location on the streets. Third, no permittee can operate in a congested area where the operation might impede or inconvenience public use of the street. The chapter names the decision-maker: the judgment of a police officer, exercised in good faith, is deemed conclusive as to whether the area is congested and the public impeded or inconvenienced. Vendors have no built-in appeal on that question in this section.

Other sections add conditions. Section 9-102 requires a permit for each location at which a business operates, and § 9-104 requires the application to list each vehicle used for sales, with make, model, description and license tag number. Under § 9-106 the permittee must carry the permit and show it on request to a police officer or code enforcement officer. Section 15-610 separately makes it unlawful to park any vehicle upon any street from which vehicle merchandise is peddled or sold, unless the person selling the goods has a license to make such sales. Street barkers work only during recognized festival or parade days, and their permits match those dates (§ 9-110). Zoning for private lots sits in the separately adopted Zoning Ordinance, which Title 14 adopts by reference and this record does not quote.