Food-truck vendors sue Calif. city over parking ban

(CBS/AP) MONROVIA, Calif. - Food vendors in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia are delivering a message: the truck stops here! (or at least it should)

More than 100 gourmet food truckers are suing the city, challenging a recently enacted law that bans rolling restaurants from parking in Monrovia's Old Town shopping district.

When they adopted the law in January, Monrovia officials said they wanted to protect local restaurants and also maintain the ambiance of their town's core shopping district and other neighborhoods. Thirty-seven thousand people live in Monrovia.

Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association attorney Jeff Dermer said Thursday state law only allows cities to pass ordinances regulating food trucks for safety reasons. He says laws cannot be adopted simply to protect existing businesses from competition.

Dermer says he hopes the lawsuit will set a standard that all cities follow in regulating food trucks in the future.