It’s been a long week, but it’s finally Friday, so I say we all deserve a break. Car Week is about to kick off in Monterey, and we’ll have quite a few reveals to cover soon. For now, though, let’s take a minute and enjoy some incredibly low-stakes drama (for those of us who don’t live in Maine, at least) over the Maine Lobster Festival allegedly telling food truck operators they can’t sell lobster rolls at the festival and then trying to hide them over by the toilets when they refused. Food trucks are technically transportation, after all.
According to Bangor Daily News, multiple food truck operators have accused the Maine Lobster Festival of trying to stop them from selling lobster rolls at the lobster festival. When Richard Curtis, who operates the Mac Attack food truck with Siearra Cook, refused to do so, he told the newspaper the festival moved his truck behind an inflatable bouncy castle and next to some Porta Potties. Amato’s food truck owner, Omar Hadjaissa, also told the paper the festival informed him he would have to hand over $8 for every lobster roll he sold, and if he didn’t, they’d block his food truck with something large enough to hide it from festival-goers.
“I’m a generational fisherman. Lobster is our mascot and lobster is a big item on our menu,” Curtis told the Daily News, adding, “Siearra [Cook] and I decided to stand up for ourselves” by refusing to sign the agreement to not sell lobster. Hadjaissa, on the other hand, reluctantly agreed to the festival’s terms, saying, “How is that fair? I’m a small business trying to survive.”
It’s all about the money
When the Daily News reached out for a comment, Festival President Celia Crie Knight “said she had no comment at this time on the matter.” The city, meanwhile, said that when an organization reserves the park for an event, they’re allowed to move vendors if they want.
Still, it seems a little weird for a lobster festival to try to stop food trucks from selling lobster rolls, right? Is it not a lobster festival? Well, as with so many things in life, it sounds like it comes down to money. Specifically, the festival wants to charge a lot of money for lobster rolls, and it wants the food trucks to increase their prices so they don’t undercut the festival’s lobster roll profits.
Apparently, the festival tried to force the food truck operators to charge at least $30 per roll to match what it charges. The $8 the festival demanded for every roll Amato’s sells? That’s the difference between the $30 they’re selling lobster rolls for and the $22 that Amato’s charges for its lobster rolls. As for punishing the offending food truck operators by moving them to undesirable locations, that appears to be because the festival doesn’t have the authority to dictate vendors’ menus, but it does have the power to decide where they can locate their trucks.
You could certainly make the argument that the festival has an interest in making sure vendors don’t price their food so low, no one else can possibly compete, but at the same time, it still feels pretty scummy. Especially when the minimum price is $30, not like, say, $20.
