ARLINGTON, Va.—Today, the Institute for Justice (IJ) sent a letter to local officials in Nashville, Indiana, urging the town to reconsider proposed restrictions on food trucks.  

As drafted, the ordinance would prohibit mobile food vendors from operating in Nashville’s downtown “Village District,” where most of the town’s restaurants and shops are clustered, except during special events. IJ’s letter warns that singling out food trucks to shield existing businesses from competition is both bad policy and likely unconstitutional. 

“It is not the government’s job to decide which businesses succeed and which fail,” said Riley Grace Borden, an IJ attorney and co-author of the letter. “It is especially troubling that the town council member leading the discussions owns a downtown restaurant.” 

Some council members say they’re concerned that the presence of food trucks could harm established brick-and-mortar eateries. But research on the issue finds that if anything, the opposite is true. 

A 2022 IJ analysis, for instance, examined 12 years of county-level census data and found that as food trucks were introduced to communities, the restaurant industry continued to grow. “Far from harming the restaurant industry, food trucks can complement it,” the study concluded. “Growth in the number of food trucks goes hand in hand with growth in the number of restaurants.” 

Those findings formed the backbone of a peer-reviewed follow-up study, published in 2025, which found that “for every additional food truck in a county, we would expect to see about three additional restaurants.” 

One possible reason is that the presence of food trucks brings more visitors to an area, which benefits all businesses in that area, including restaurants. 

The proposed restrictions also raise concerns under both the federal and Indiana constitutions. The U.S. Supreme Court, for instance, expressly held that economic protectionism violates the U.S. Constitution in the 1985 case Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Ward.  

IJ’s National Street Vending Initiative challenges anti-competitive laws that harm street vendors and food trucks by unconstitutionally restricting their right to earn an honest living. IJ has defeated dozens of anti-food truck restrictions, including victories in Kentucky, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and other states.