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

Article 53 of the zoning code splits mobile food vending into two categories with different location rules. A roving mobile vendor under Sec. 5330 can use the public right-of-way but must stay 100 feet from any street intersection, 200 feet from another mobile vendor already stopped, and must move at least 600 feet every 30 minutes without returning to the same spot, or within 600 feet of it, on the same calendar day, with a narrow exception letting a vendor return up to twice daily to serve shift changes at an industrial or office building.

An open air vendor, by contrast, sets up at one fixed private location and cannot use the public right-of-way at all. Sec. 5345(a)(2) confines open air vending to sites the City has already identified as having large unmet service needs: industrial building or complex space greater than 65,000 square feet, office building or complex space greater than 50,000 square feet, or retail building or complex space greater than 100,000 square feet. Smaller sites are not automatically off-limits, but the vendor bears the burden of presenting evidence of unmet need to the Planning Commission, and a use permit under Sec.

7003(d)(5) is required before the Commission can approve vending on a smaller property. Additional siting conditions apply everywhere: the vendor must be incidental to a licensed primary business, cannot occupy required parking spaces, cannot set up on a vacant or undeveloped lot, must sit on a paved surface, and if within 400 feet of a business selling similar goods, needs that competitor's written consent before a permit issues.