No Room To Roam

WHEN Department of Licenses & Inspections enforcers busted the Buttercream Cupcake Lady's truck last week in University City, it sent shock waves through the cutting-edge gaggle of rolling gourmet-food vendors that roam Philadelphia, broadcasting their locations via Twitter, vending for a couple of hours and moving on.

Philadelphia is a newcomer to the drive-by dining fad that has so overwhelmed New York City streets that there's a freeze on vending permits. In Los Angeles, the city council is currently scrambling to legislatively control the outbreak of unregulated rolling gourmet kitchens.

Right now, Philly's half-dozen roaming trucks include two that sell high-end cupcakes, a farm-ingredients taco truck, Mojo Gourmet Coffee, Renaissance Sausage (@TheSausageTruck on Twitter) and The Dapper Dog (@thedapperdog) - offering wee-hours wieners on wheels.

Kate Carrara, aka Buttercream Cupcake Lady, ran afoul of L&I enforcers when she parked on Market Street near 33rd-mistakenly thinking she was a block outside the University City restricted zone.

L&I Commissioner Fran Burns said that Carrara had the city ordinance on restricted zones and must have known she was taking a chance on confiscation.

But the Cupcake Lady (@ButtercreamPhl on Twitter), who talks more like a New Age flour child than the 35-year-old lawyer-turned-baker that she is, said that the city law is layer upon layer of revisions, and she found it indecipherable.

"Could a lawyer figure that out?" Carrara asked. "No. I'm a lawyer and I couldn't. Maybe a team of lawyers could.

"My husband, Andy, who works for Morgan Stanley, spent hours marking the restricted streets on a city map," she said. "I'm the dreamer. He's the numbers nerd. I think like a flower. He thinks like a computer. We thought we were a block outside the restricted zone-and we still got busted."

Amazing but true: New York City lists all five boroughs of vending-restricted streets in seven, clearly organized, easy-to-read pages. Philadelphia's list is 20 pages of chaos.

Carrara paid a $200 fine and got her truck back but, a week after the bust, said that she is still feeling the incident's "chilling effect."

Despite sticking to LOVE Park, where she has a special permit from Fairmount Park, and to areas outside Center City and University City, Carrara, who has more than 4,300 followers on Twitter, said that "every time I hear a siren, I get all jumpy in the truck and I think, 'Oh, my God, they're coming to get me.' "