by SEAN KIMMONS

Samantha Bellows, one of the owners of The Chilly Penguin snow cone trailer, addresses the Kyle City Council last week. (Photo by Sean Kimmons)

Local mobile snow cone vendors turned out to last week’s Kyle city council meeting, protesting the current city code for freezing out their trade.

But the city may be thawing to their plight. Kyle councilmembers voted 5-1 last Tuesday night asking city staff to create an amendment to allow, define and regulate mobile food vendors within the city. Councilmember Michelle Lopez dissented and Councilmember Becky Selbera was absent.

Under the city’s temporary vendor permit process, city staff have told mobile food vendors they can’t operate in Kyle. Most recently, they shot down permit requests for a trio of young entrepreneurs hoping to open a snow cone trailer called The Chilly Penguin.

Co-owner Samantha Bellows, a 28-year-old Kyle resident, pleaded in front of the council for a change in the “peddlers, solicitors and vendors” regulation, which requires that all retail business be conducted in a fully enclosed building on an engineered foundation.

“Let us work here,” she said. “Let us provide a nice outing for our families. Let us help you with the sales tax.”

Bill Sinor, another Kyle resident and snow cone vendor, also urged the council to help these types of small businesses, like his.

“For over a year I’ve been trying to do business in Kyle,” he said. “It’s pretty sad that I have to go to San Marcos, Manchaca, Buda to do business.”

If the regulation is relaxed, some city officials fear an onslaught of vendors littering the streets and creating an eyesore.

“Based on our experience, it would be our view that if the [City] Code or the current interpretation would be changed to allow such vendors, there would definitely be more than just one ‘snow cone stand’ – and possibly a proliferation of such vendors in the City,” said a memorandum signed by the Kyle Planning Director Shira Rodgers and building official Mario Perez.

However, there hasn’t been “an influx of large proportions” of vendors in other Hays County communities that already grant permission, Bellows said.

Sinor understands that city staff wants to avoid “junk trailers” in the city but says his trailers are the complete opposite.

“We don’t want to have a bunch of trash sitting around here but both of my trailers are professional concession trailers,” he said. “Let us work in our home.”

Mayor Lucy Johnson supported a change to the regulation as long as the vendors complied with proper health standards.

“I think snow cone stands are cool,” she said. “I think it would be a good thing for Kyle.”

Councilmember Michelle Lopez was leery that the move would create future problems.

“I understand the need to want to open up opportunities for local business owners in town,” she said. “[But] this opens the floodgates for many other things, and I’m not sure that’s what we really want.”

Johnson countered by saying, “For me, I think that this is a possible floodgate that I’d be happy with.”

City staffers told Bellows that she could rent out a lot on city-owned parkland at $50 daily, or about $1,500 monthly. She would also have to purchase her own generator. Bellows’ group presently has a tentative agreement to rent the empty lot at the corner of Center Street and Old Highway 81 for $350 monthly, with electricity and wastewater included.

“The city staff has no problem with us operating on their property [for rent] so there’s obviously ways that this can be allowed,” Bellows said. “It’s just that the city won’t receive the rent if we move elsewhere.”