OCEAN CITY – The day before bids were to go out for the town’s new Vehicle Vending Franchise the Mayor and City Council voted to amend the definition of what is allowed to be served in attempts to broaden responses.
Earlier this year, the owner of the town’s ice cream truck franchise informed the town he would not be able to fulfill the remainder of his current four-year contract, which expired in 2016. As a result, town officials agreed to re-open the bidding process for the ice cream truck franchise with a due date of Feb. 9. The Selbyville company Georgeo’s Water Ice was the lone applicant when the bids were opened, but the council rejected the lone undisclosed bid amount and voted to rebid the franchise to a broader vendor base.
Late last month Councilman Dennis Dare suggested the code could be amended to allow for certain other goods without crossing the line to food truck and infringing on other businesses. Dare said allowing the ice cream truck franchisee to offer other goods could improve its chances for success and prevent a similar situation where the franchisee had to default.
His colleagues disagreed stating a less-restrictive code would open a can of worms. After considerable debate, the council voted to leave the definition as it is with just ice cream, candy and non-alcoholic beverages with no other “pre-packaged” foods allowed.
However, last month, Go Melvo Snoballs owner Jeff McMahon brought to the council’s attention the potential in allowing the Vehicle Vending Franchise to sell snowballs.
“In my opinion, the ice cream market is over saturated in Ocean City,” McMahon said at that time. “I believe snowballs are what Ocean City needs. Snowballs are a delicacy in Maryland. I truly believe the people that vacation here would appreciate and welcome the change from ice cream to snowballs. Our Maryland residents, especially those who vacation here from Baltimore, grew up on snowballs…it has been a long time coming, and it would be a great change.”
The council became open to McMahon’s request to have the definition of “prepared food” allow for snowballs.
“It is in the same family as ice cream, and I can’t believe it is something that nobody has mentioned up here. It has made a lot of sense … That would increase the viability for the business and offer variety to the visitors,” Mayor Rick Meehan said at that time.
Suring last week’s Mayor and City Council regular session, officials reviewed the addition of “frozen treats” and voted unanimously to approve the amendment as an emergency ordinance due to the bid process scheduled to start the next day.