Eleanor Mueller

USA TODAY Network

As the food-truck trend continues to grow, cities across the country are struggling to develop regulations that treat the restaurants-on-wheels and their brick-and-mortar counterparts fairly.

Food trucks are one of the fastest-growing sectors of the restaurant industry, with sales of almost $700 million in 2013, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Proponents say they provide affordable, diverse and easily accessible cuisine to consumers. But opponents say they pose a threat to long-established restaurants.

"There's a lot of confusion," said Matt Geller, CEO of the National Food Truck Association and the Southern California Mobile Vendors Association.

It's a scene being played out across the country, as municipalities attempt to address the question of where and for how long food trucks can park – without negatively affecting other businesses in the area.

In Palm Springs, Calif., officials chose this week to table a decision on how to regulate food trucks in their city and instead extended a ban against them for another year, citing a need to get more input from stakeholders and look at additional safety provisions.

"The county just changed the law so that they're allowed on public streets, but cities can regulate it," Palm Springs City Manager David Ready said. "They are allowed (on private property) and will be allowed (on public property), we just have to come up with a set-up that regulates where they can be."

But the ban puts the city in conflict with state law that allows food trucks on public property right now, Geller said.

"They're trying to supersede state law," said Geller. "If I were so inclined, that wouldn't be a hard lawsuit."

Chicago has established regulations but is facing legal backlash from truck owners who say they are too strict.

A 2012 lawsuit filed by Laura Pekarik, owner of mobile cupcake shop Cupcakes for Courage, accuses the city of discriminating against food trucks by requiring them to be tracked by GPS and parked 200 feet away from any other business selling food.

"Because of the city's high density, it makes it practically impossible for food trucks to operate downtown," said Bert Gall, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, the entrepreneur advocacy group representing Pekarik.

Such restrictions are an attempt by the city to protect brick-and-mortar restaurants that would potentially suffer from the increased competition, Gall said,

"​That's a story you see played out in city after city, big and small," Gall said.

Some municipalities have addressed the concerns.

Officials in the District of Columbia last year established a food truck lottery system that mobile food vendors can enter to "win" parking spots at popular locations like the National Mall each month.

And in Des Moines, Iowa, city officials expect to launch a pilot program this spring that would allow food trucks to park on some public properties.

By revamping their food-truck laws, they hope to avoid the convoluted regulations of other municipalities like Los Angeles, whose overlapping public health regulations, municipal on-street regulations, and zoning codes were once not only confusing, but badly enforced, Geller said.

"There was a lot of confusion on what the actual regulations are," Geller said. "There were regulations being enforced that didn't exist, regulations being enforced that weren't constitutional, polices that didn't fit with the codes that they were enforcing – the government took too many liberties."

With the growth of food trucks, it's no wonder that many cities are still in the dark when it comes to shaping the appropriate legislation.

"This came out of nowhere," Geller said, "and forming good policy on something you've never dealt with before is tough."