City Speaks Out About Cupcake Truck Snafu

Licenses and Inspections breaks their silence about their conflict with a roaming Philadelphia cupcake vendor.

KYW's Hadas Kuznits reports that Maura Kennedy, a spokesperson for Licenses and Inspections says when the city impounded the Buttercream Cupcake Lady's truck, it wasn't their first run-in with her:

"We first were notified of their illegal vending in early July. We went out and informed them what they would need to do to get right with the law -- at that time they didn't have a business privilege license -- so they weren't correctly paying taxes to the city on their income. They didn't have a food license so they didn't have any sort of health inspector come in and review their business and they also didn't have a license to vend from a vehicle."

Kennedy says even though the cupcake truck roams around Philadelphia, it's considered a vending truck, which is different than a moving ice cream truck:

"This cupcake truck is going somewhere for an entire day so that's not the same thing as an ice cream truck where you're pulling over for 30 seconds at a time."

Kennedy says the Kate Carrara, the cupcake lady, needs a separate license to vend in University City, a license she didn't have when her truck was impounded.

In a blog post, the Carrara says she didn't get the proper inspections and tax forms filled out at first, but once she was informed that her truck was illegal, she took it off the road for 10 days until all the legal matters were resolved.

As to where her truck can be and when, she says she wants to speak with city officials to make the permit application process easier to understand for her and other vendors.