After digging out from the two feet of snow winter storm Nemo left in its wake, it was business as usual for most Boston companies on Monday morning. One sector of the local economy, however, was still experiencing a slow start following the weekend’s storm: Many food trucks that shut down for business on Friday were closed through Monday.

Although several spots were cleared by Tuesday morning, the loss of business was hard on the city’s food truck community.

According to the City of Boston’s Office of Food Truck Initiatives, food trucks can only be stationed at their designated locations across the Hub at specific time slots. When operators went to their designated truck parking spots on Monday, though, they were met with heaping mounds of snow, rendering the spots completely unusable.

“We’ve been out since Friday. We wanted to be back out [on Monday], but the snow banks are massive,” said James DiSabatino of Roxy’s Grilled Cheese on Monday. “I scoped out almost all of our spots [on Sunday], and the snow extends 10 feet into the street.”

The owner of Mei Mei Street Kitchen told a similar story. “We think we might be able to open at our dinner spot [on Tuesday] at Clarendon St., but Tuesday’s lunch location at Stuart St. has huge snow drifts in place,” Mei Li said.

“It looks like it’s the location where the City has been dumping the plowed snow so it would be pretty impossible to shovel it out ourselves,” added Li. “Our Greenway spot was unusable today, the Boston Public Library spot is a wall of snow and our BU spots also appear to be unplowed.”

The city has mandated that the food trucks are responsible for clearing their own spots, which is contradictory, because the spots are on public streets. Moreover, grabbing a shovel and digging out is not even an option, explained DiSabatino, who said that Boston Public Works has told operators they cannot simply plow their own spots; rather, they must completely remove the snow altogether, with a privately contracted dump truck, per se.

“That’s not really a viable option,” he said.

On behalf of the Boston Food Truck Alliance (BFTA), DiSabatino and Sara Ross of Kickass Cupcakes have been working with the city to come up with solution to get the trucks back on the road.

“We’ve been in close contact with the Office of Food Initiatives, and they’re undoubtedly sympathetic and trying to help, but their hands are tied,” said DiSabatino of the situation.

Edith Murnane, Director of Food Initiatives for the city, provided the following statement on the issue: “While the city is focusing its energies on clearing snow from all of Boston’s streets and schools and creating a safe street-scape, BFTA and individual food trucks are working with the Office of Food Initiatives so that food trucks, like other city businesses, can begin cleaning and clearing their sites.”

But DiStabatino made it clear that the problem went beyond the Office of Food Initiatives.

“It’s a Public Works issue,” DiSabatino explained. “Food trucks are definitely not a priority for Public Works – we almost never deal with them directly; we simply pick up our permits from them and pay our rent to them, so we don’t really have their sympathy because our relationship with them is purely financial.”

Chubby Chickpea owner Avi Shemtov’s frustration rests in the fact that as the trucks’ landlord, the city refuses to reimburse operators for days when their rented spots are unusable. Moreover, Shemtov expressed his growing concern for the loss of wages when food trucks are unable to operate.

Hiring private operators to remove the snow in the spots, then, is virtually impossible “for trucks already facing big losses,” said Li. “It’s a bad situation for us as small businesses that depend on small margins, and it’s really tough for food truck staff across the city that are out of work while all the trucks are out of commission,” she added.

DiSabtaino echoed Li’s statement. “A lot of people are out of work right now, and the Mayor approved the food truck program to create jobs, so hopefully someone in Public Works will understand that clearing six food truck spots is more important than they think.”

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