City Council - Regular Meeting

Wednesday, August 5, 2026

The North Myrtle Beach City Council discussed a potential ordinance to regulate food trucks, focusing on five key policy questions including permit exemptions, permit caps, separation requirements from brick-and-mortar restaurants, vendor limits per site, and permit fees. Public comments revealed mixed opinions on the proposed regulations, particularly regarding competition with existing restaurants and the impact on the city.

About this meeting

Government Body
City Council
Meeting Type
City Council
Location
North Myrtle Beach, SC
Meeting Date
August 5, 2026

Published excerpts

Only published remarks appear here. The full transcript is not published.

20 sections

1:11•J.O. Baldwin, III

I call the meeting to order and ask the clerk to call the roll.

1:36 – 1:49•J.O. Baldwin, III

So we will move into a discussion. regarding potential ordinance to establish regulations for operation of food trucks within the city of North Myrtle Beach. Jim, you're gonna start this?

10:49•Trey Skidmore

I mean, I definitely got comments. Yeah.

15:04 – 15:16•Trey Skidmore

So the way I'm understanding this, so if the property owner who is a restaurant wants to have a detached food truck at their property at certain times or all the time, they would be able to be right beside the building if they wanted to?

19:10 – 19:47•Trey Skidmore

I do have one concern. So obviously our brick-and-mortar restaurants, they capitalize in tourism during the three, four months, about three months we have now. so are we going to restrict somebody from just leasing a piece of dirt having a food truck capitalizing during that time and then they're gone they don't have all the other expenses to thrive to survive through the year i mean what is your thought on that that's one of the biggest you know debating points about the desirability of food trucks is this whole competition issue with brick and mortar restaurants um

20:31 – 20:55•Trey Skidmore

lease a piece of dirt for three months and set up and compete with our brick and mortar restaurants i mean i i'm i'm not okay with that um if the city wants to have a festival and have a big food truck festival i think that's great but just sit there and compete with you know the brick and mortars that have so much more overhead um during our our small tourism window that just

21:15 – 22:36•J.O. Baldwin, III

what if it was just you allowed it only at a brick and mortar building a food truck in other words that owner of that brick and mortar building would have to ask or pull a permit to have a food truck there that day there's been a lot of restaurants I've talked to at least four that would like to have food trucks there, and I'm not exactly sure why. They're all different reasons why they want to do that for different events, different times. But there's not many places that are vacant pieces of property, but I can see where if there was one and somebody put it up near a restaurant, I agree with

22:36 – 22:51•Trey Skidmore

I'm more on like Jose with the taco stand that goes and he sets up in a parking lot or vacant piece of property, you see it. That's more what I'm speaking on. I don't have a problem at all like you're saying with the brick and mortar business owning the food truck there.

26:26•J.O. Baldwin, III

Okay. Like if you have big lots and big lots wanted to have a food truck there, but if they didn't want to have one there, then you wouldn't be able to just go set up in their parking lot. Right.

27:27 – 27:39•Trey Skidmore

I guess, Council, the other thing we need to ask is, like a Lowe's or a Big Lots, or do we want to, in the ordinance, that they can continue, or it be a limited amount of days?

30:20•Trey Skidmore

Kids running up to the truck. There's booze pops around here. I'm not going to disclose the location they were at, but there's booze pops. So somehow they're getting around it. Yeah. We'll look into that a little bit too.

30:52 – 31:19•Trey Skidmore

And that is bringing up restaurants. That's another thing that I, and I don't see why it wouldn't be a problem because the restaurant owner can have a food truck as close as they want to, but you might have the situation come where they've rented an older building and it's just not feasible to revamp it for the restaurant to be able to have the restaurant on the outside of the building. And that wouldn't prohibit that in any way in this ordinance from what I see, correct?

31:41•Trey Skidmore

Well, so... And this is an example that's happened. Now, they eventually ended up doing the hood vent, doing all that, but it was expensive, so they had looked at...

32:34 – 33:17•J.O. Baldwin, III

Can we look into Charleston, what their rules and regulations are? Because I know there's a lot of restaurants there and they're really close together that do food trucks, so they've got to be within 200 feet of another restaurant. But do they, I don't know how they operate. Is it like once a week, twice a week, seven days a week? I'm not sure, but it'd be worth looking into, because that's the place I've heard where you have a lot of restaurants that have food trucks. Okay, yeah, we'll be happy to do a deep dive into their ordinance. Are there any other comments or questions by council? Okay,

33:22•J.O. Baldwin, III

Please come forward, give your name and address. We have a three-minute time limit. Thank you.

36:49•J.O. Baldwin, III

Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from the public?

38:49•J.O. Baldwin, III

Are there any other comments from the public?

40:24•J.O. Baldwin, III

Are there any other comments or questions or comments from the public? Hearing none, okay, yes.

41:33•J.O. Baldwin, III

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments from the public? Hearing none, I'll meet a motion to adjourn.

41:43•J.O. Baldwin, III

There's a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All against? The meeting's adjourned. Thank you.

These excerpts are remarks by officials whose identity a person confirmed, from a transcript generated automatically from the official public meeting video and presented unedited. Accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.