Higher fees, background checks for Glen Ellyn cart vendors

Vendors who operate food carts in downtown Glen Ellyn soon will pay more for a village license and be required to have background checks for all employees 18 and older.

Under new regulations approved this week by the village board, the annual application fee for a vendor cart license will increase from $50 to $150.

A fingerprint-based background check that costs $50 also must be completed each year for each adult employee, Planning and Development Director Staci Hulseberg said. The owner of the cart will have to submit to a background check as well.

In the past, the village has authorized license agreements with a variety of carts, including a hot-dog cart that's been around since 1997 and a cart that sold slushies last year, Hulseberg said.

Under the new regulations, the village is allowed to issue up to three such licenses each year. Vendors will only be allowed in the village's central business district, and the carts can only be used to sell food and beverages.

The original proposal called for background checks for all cart employees no matter their age, but trustees amended it to those 18 and older.

"Because this is different than a brick-and-mortar building, because the village is allowing use of the public way for the vendor carts, what the police department wanted was the ability to do background checks (on everyone)," police Chief Phil Norton said.

He said police wanted to check all employees "just to make sure we didn't have people with criminal histories that weren't conducive to working in the public way" and "(to make sure) we didn't have sex offenders, especially juvenile sex offenders."

The background checks would serve to protect the children who are attracted to vendor carts that sell items like hot dogs and ice cream, Norton said.

Trustee Tim Elliott said he could agree with background checks for adults, but doing them for juveniles felt "heavy-handed."

Trustee Dean Clark agreed.

"I'm not sure I can rationalize the idea of fingerprinting juveniles," Clark said.

The board voted 5-1 for the new regulations, with Trustee Jim Burket casting the lone dissenting vote.