Chicago Food Truck Fight Complaint & Litigation Justice Hugo Black Would Approve

Recently, two food truck owners in Chicago and their lawyers filed suit against the City alleging that the recently passed food truck ordinance is unconstitutional and should be struck down because it is unconstitutional. Mobile Cuisine Chicago Food Truck Lawsuit Story

 I've had the good fortune to read the complaint, and I think Justice Black, (however he decided) would applaud the complaint recently filed in the ongoing saga of food trucks in Chicago. Download Chicago Vending Filed-Stamped Complaint

 I say this because Black greatly appreciated and enthusiastically applauded the ability to get to the point and go for the jugular: "It manifests a keen form of analysis to hit the jugular as you have in this case. This is good writing that follows the classic rule Aristotle laid down in his Rhetoric. Start--continue--finish"

 The complaint raises the due process argument well, but as Black would say it also goes for the jugular which is the City's requirement that food trucks be outfitted with global position devices to broadcast their locations.  It's hard to argue municipal regulators do not have an inherent power to regulate food in their jurisdiction. Obviously they do, but that's where the real issue is, imho.

 The GPS requirement is the jugular vein of this case because when the Supreme Court of the United States voices its hesitation over GPS tracking requirements, and a municipality chooses to impose them, it means there's going to be a fight, and it's going to be a Bears vs. Packers fight that's going to worth watching.

The complaint also does a great job of developing the broader policy implications as well. I'm eagerly planning on seeing Lincoln this weekend and, based on the trailers one of the most compelling lines I've heard yet, is when one of the characters says of Lincoln's  decision to abolish slavery that, "This fight is for the United States of America."

 In a way for local food the fight over the local food truck requirements is a fundamental one because this fight is over who gets to be a food entrepreneur. Who gets to start over and start a food business? Who gets own and use the essential items of capital which help make the global/local interconnected food system we are part of go?