Back in the day, the only kind of food joint you could find on wheels was an ice cream truck. Today, Champaign’s newest food truck, Crave Truck, is quickly garnering a big customer base, changing the face of food business in Champaign.

But according to Rob Kowalski, Champaign assistant planning director, Champaign city’s laws on mobile food trucks haven’t been updated since 1995. That ordinance has put the up-and-coming business on hold.

“The food truck is considered a peddler,” Kowalski said. “The rule is that it can stay on private property, even if it’s on public rights-of-way. But you have to keep moving every five minutes (if on public property). Mobile food trucks don’t want to move around every five minutes.”

Zach Ware, owner of the Crave Truck, is pushing to change requirements mandated by the ordinance, specifically where a mobile food truck is allowed to stay and for how long. He said he had talked to the Champaign City clerk’s office last year, which granted him permission to park at the public meters as long as he served his customers, packed up immediately and didn’t feed the city meter. Ware, 18, holds a peddler’s license with the City of Champaign.

This year, however, the city’s ordinance was reinterpreted, forbidding him from operating his truck at the public meters, according to Ware. The Crave Truck has been off the streets for about two weeks but has moved to Twitter to keep business afloat.

“There’s a lot of support in the community for (the Crave Truck) as a business,” Ware said. “The food truck laws in Champaign are based on peddlers, so there needs to be new ordinances.”

Ware began running the Crave Truck a little over a year ago, selling waffles and coffee. His business is still new, but Ware said he’s been working to keep it in operation, talking with

Champaign Mayor Don Gerard and a number of council members.

The primary counterargument to making changes to the ordinance is that by allowing mobile food businesses to station at a location for a longer duration, they present unhealthy competition against food businesses housed in buildings.

“What you’ll find in cities under the same kind of review is that there is concern that a competitor can come and start selling food across the street,” Kowalski said.

The Champaign City Council will review the ordinance on June 26 at the regularly scheduled study session. According to a press release, the City of Champaign and the Champaign Center Partnership will work together to gather input from both mobile food truck and downtown Champaign and Campustown business owners.