Hobsons Bay mobile vendors policy deferred

Alberto Cerminara (Joe Mastroianni) 215967_02

Goya Dmytryshchak

Hobsons Bay council has deferred its draft mobile vendors policy to its first meeting of 2022.

As reported by Star Weekly, Albert Cerminara, who runs the Mr Fresh Ice Cream truck, said the proposed policy would drive him out of Hobsons Bay.

“The policy is unreasonable and unfair,“ he said.

“The things that concern me would be the 500-metre exclusion zone from an activity centre, existing bricks and mortar (businesses), approved vendor locations and other mobile vendors.

“It’s excessive. We won’t be able to trade anywhere basically. It would take out Newport, it would take Williamstown, it would take out Altona.“

Mr Cerminara said the $12,000 annual permit fee for itinerant (roaming) vendors was excessive.

Deputy mayor Daria Kellander said 1208 people had responded to a council survey on the policy.

“Feedback from the residents and businesses was pretty much split between suggesting that we had no exclusion zone, a 100 metre exclusion zone, limiting the mobile vendor capacity to trade in some way from an exclusion-zone perspective and … supporting lower fees,” she said.

“We’ve gone from $12,000 down to $6000, 500-metre exclusion zone down to 200 metres – some big changes – and I think that we need to spend a little bit more time talking about that to come to some sort of agreement and consensus before we bring it back to the community once again.”

Cr Peter Hemphill said there had been “enough discussions”.

“It’s been going on and on and on and on and if we let it go until next year we just look to be indecisive and I just think we should just get on with it sooner or later rather than just keep going backwards and forwards.”