(Forbes)
One of the nation’s longest-running food fights could soon be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Under an ordinance meant to protect restaurants from competition, Chicago banned food trucks from vending within 200 feet of any restaurant, grocery store, and other brick-and-mortar establishments that sell food. In order to enforce that proximity ban, Chicago requires all food trucks to physically install a GPS tracker. Whenever a truck is on the clock, their location is transmitted to a third-party servicer, which retains the data for at least six months. City regulators can then access those records without a warrant.
Laura Pekarik, who owns the Cupcakes for Courage food truck, sued the city in 2012 over its ordinance, but lost before the Illinois Supreme Court earlier this year. Remarkably, the court denied that forcing a business to install a GPS tracker should even be considered a search, much less a constitutional violation. Represented by the Institute for Justice, Laura filed a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, urging the justices to strike down Chicago’s GPS tracking requirement.
The Illinois Supreme Court decision “squarely conflicts” with recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent, IJ noted, and has “national implications” that go well beyond mobile vending in the Windy City. Boston and New York City have similar GPS requirements for their food trucks (though the vast majority of cities, including those with flourishing street food scenes, like Austin and Los Angeles, don’t use satellites to spy on mobile vendors. Read more