Mountain View City Council members on Tuesday second-guessed a package of new rules they passed one week earlier to regulate a new wave of fuel-delivery startups. While they left the door open to making looser rules in the future, council members approved the ordinance that mobile fuel company representatives said would put them out of business. The ordinance will go into effect at the end of April.
The nascent companies, including Filld and Yoshi, operate by sending out fleets of truck equipped with fuel tanks to fill up customers’ vehicles in parking lots, on the street or at their homes. The companies have been pumping gas in Mountain View and other Peninsula cities for nearly two years, even though their business model was illegal, according to fire officials.
Last week, after much discussion, the Mountain View City Council approved a package of regulations tailored by state fire officials to bring the new businesses within established safety standards, which includes $170 permits and inspections of all fueling sites. But company representatives described the regulations and new fees as essentially dooming their business.
It was a true wedge issue for the city’s elected leaders. On one hand, most of the council members were unsympathetic to the startups, since they had circumvented rules for a hazardous substance, albeit with a track record of no major spills or fires. Councilwoman Margaret Abe-Koga pressed the company representatives to explain how they complied with the law.
“The fire code does not forbid what we do, but it doesn’t state that it’s allowed,” explained Filld founder Christopher Aubuchon. He noted that his trucks operated under a fire-code exemption allowing landscaping and construction contractors to lug 110-gallon tanks to work sites. His company’s trucks were each outfitted with two to four of these tanks, he said.
The industry had apparently gained some allies since the last meeting. At the March 28 meeting, Mayor Ken Rosenberg, Councilman Chris Clark and local business leaders went to bat for the companies, saying they had operated safely for years and didn’t deserve to see their business squashed.
Clark proposed a “middle ground” that would somehow satisfy both sides. In a rare move, he pulled the second reading of the ordinance off the consent agenda, and the council rehashed the issues all over again.
City Fire Chief Juan Diaz, on the other hand, did not budge from his position. He once again urged the council not to weaken the rules, warning that they presented a real danger in trucking hundreds of gallons of gas into residential areas.
“Mobile fuel dispensing in a residential neighborhood, as I interpret it, is completely illegal,” he said. “I’m concerned about having mobile-fuel dispensing. If we have a fire, how will we deal with this problem?”
Despite those warnings, council members seemed to agree that they needed to retool the rules to be more accommodating. They requested the fire chief to cooperate with state and county fire officials to find more options, but they didn’t specify when a new set of rules should be established.
That said, the council approved the second reading of the original ordinance in a 5-1 vote with Rosenberg opposed, and Councilman John McAlister absent. It will take effect in 30 days.
“Legislating a company out of business doesn’t seem like the right approach, especially one with a clear safety record,” Rosenberg explained. “The letter of the law for this company doesn’t seem suitable yet.”
Email Mark Noack at mnoack@mv-voice.com
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