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MONTREAL – The food truck operated by Dispatch Coffee is about the last place you would expect to encounter a fire-breathing capitalist. Co-owner Chrissy Durcak would rather talk about the sustainable farms where her beans are grown, the artisanal roaster with whom she has partnered and the composting of the disposable dishes served to customers.

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But after a jury mandated by city hall last June rejected Ms. Durcak’s application to sell coffee on Montreal’s streets, concluding her product was insufficiently gourmet, the principled 26-year-old is sounding more like an apostle of free enterprise.

“The market will regulate itself,” she said in an interview this week. “If there’s a good food truck, there will be lineups no matter where it is. People will find it. . . . The city shouldn’t be trying to mandate what is gourmet or not.”

For more than 60 years, it had been forbidden to sell so much as a pretzel on Montreal’s streets, so expectations were high when then-mayor Michael Applebaum announced this spring that he was lifting the ban for a pilot project. But instead of the anticipated culinary glasnost, aspiring food truck operators have hit a regulatory wall.

Bureaucrats are dictating where they can operate, when they must close, even what part of the truck they can serve from. City hall picked which trucks would be licensed based on their ability to “contribute to Montreal’s brand image as a gourmet city.” If you planned to serve hotdogs, they had better be hand-crafted and locally sourced. And your poutine should be topped with foie gras or wild mushrooms.