SOUTH PORTLAND – With the recent boom in food trucks, South Portland is considering making changes to its ordinances in order to better regulate the industry within the city limits.

On Monday, the City Council held a workshop on modernizing its regulations to include food trucks, which City Manager Jim Gailey said are quite different from ice cream trucks and hot dog carts.

He told the council that the city’s ordinances regarding mobile vending were “written decades ago” and need updating in order to ensure that food trucks are operating in a way that protects public health and safety.

“Food trucks take up a lot of space, require more health and safety oversight, cater to a different customer than ice cream trucks and hot dog carts and have a more challenging relationship with brick and mortar restaurants and other mobile vendors,” Gailey said in materials provided to the council before Monday’s workshop.

Questions related to public health include whether the city should be stricter than the Maine Food Code in the area of sanitation, including hand washing and restroom facilities for food truck workers.

Gailey said public-safety issues include cooking with an open flame, where food trucks can park and for how long and whether there should be any proximity restrictions, including being a certain distance from schools, other food service businesses or private property.

Gailey also said the council should consider whether food trucks should be limited to operating within certain zones, whether and what type of insurance policies such trucks should carry and how permits should be given out, such as first-come, first-served or a lottery system.

To assist the South Portland City Council in its deliberations, Gailey provided members with a copy of Portland’s food truck regulations.

Those rules require a food truck operator to apply to the city clerk’s office for a license, limit operation of food trucks to between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. and list specific streets where food trucks are allowed to operate.

Portland’s rules also allow the police department to shut down a food truck or request relocation if “in the opinion of the department, the food truck vending is causing or contributing to an imminent public safety hazard.”

In Portland, food trucks must be at least 65 feet from any fixed-base food service establishment or any hotel, bed and breakfast, motel, hostel or inn.

The Portland rules require a food truck vendor to get all the appropriate licenses and also requires that the truck being used is in compliance with all state of Maine motor vehicle laws.

Also, food trucks cannot be more than 10 feet in width, including an awning and must be no more than 40 feet in length, at a maximum, including any trailer or extension.

The Portland rules also say that a food truck must be self-contained when operating and can only sell food and non-alcoholic beverages. And, vendors must purchase a public liability insurance policy in the amount of at least $400,000.