Before Chicago passed an ordinance making food carts legal in the city, the purveyors of hot dogs, tacos and other neighborhood fare spent their days dodging the police who ran them off or wrote them $500 tickets.

Not much has changed. Before the 2015 ordinance, there were as many as 2,000 carts operating illegally in the city. Since the ordinance took effect, only five businesses have obtained licenses to operate their carts. That means the friendly entrepreneur who tends your favorite elotes wagon is very likely a scofflaw.

But you know that. And still, you can't resist. There's nothing like pulling over on your way home from work to score a dozen homemade tamales from your favorite sidewalk vendor. The constantly evolving menu of micro-local specialties is a happy consequence of living in a diverse city that loves to eat. Supply and demand meet up on a street corner thousands of times a day, especially in the warmer months.

The 18-month-old ordinance is meant to bring the vendors out of the shadows. By making them legal, the city can regulate and license them, setting and enforcing food safety standards, and collecting sales taxes. But the rules — and the fees — have proven prohibitive. So the City Council is considering changes to encourage vendors to get legal.

The ordinance requires food to be prepared and wrapped in a commercial kitchen, not at home or on the street. Carts must be temperature-controlled to prevent spoilage. Vendors aren't allowed to stake out a corner permanently — they have to roll along after two hours — and they're not allowed on some congested stretches of sidewalk downtown and around Wrigley Field.

The city's perfectly reasonable objective is to protect the public from food-borne illnesses while allowing these typically family-owned businesses to thrive in the open. So far that hasn't happened.

Last fall, Ald. Roberto Maldonado, 26th, proposed cutting the $350 license and other costs. Those changes have been incorporated into a package of business license tweaks proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. A two-year license for food cart vendors would be reduced to $100, and vendors would no longer have to pay a second license — currently up to $330 — for using a shared kitchen.

Cheaper costs for food cart vendors? City looks at cutting fees Samantha Bomkamp

A town famous for its hot dogs (hold the ketchup) may see an uptick in vendors to sell them this summer.

A pair of city committees on Wednesday approved drastic cuts in the costs associated with starting a food cart, which advocates say can run thousands of dollars. The ordinance, put forth as...

A town famous for its hot dogs (hold the ketchup) may see an uptick in vendors to sell them this summer.

A pair of city committees on Wednesday approved drastic cuts in the costs associated with starting a food cart, which advocates say can run thousands of dollars. The ordinance, put forth as...

(Samantha Bomkamp)

The current costs seem way out of scale for these businesses, so it makes sense to cut the fees down to size. And while the city has a legitimate interest in protecting consumers from food-borne illness, we urge an otherwise light hand when it comes to regulating these extra-small businesses.

Is it really necessary to require them to move to a different spot after two hours, for example? Like patrons of any business, customers need to know where to find the carts. And so far, the vendors seem to have worked out the turf issues among themselves.

Chicago should do everything it can to encourage these family startups and help them prosper. The city needs all the home-grown commerce it can get, especially in struggling neighborhoods where jobs are scarce. We hope looser licensing fees will bring more of them to other promising venues, including downtown.

That would invite resistance from the owners of brick-and-mortar restaurants, whose fear of competition is behind Chicago's hostile food truck ordinance. Those onerous rules have chased many of the trucks away, to the disappointment of workers who relish the grab-and-go fare.

We hope the food carts won't be elbowed away in the same manner. City Hall should not stand between a safe and legal business and its hungry customers.

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