Those of us who work on the Miracle Mile have enjoyed a lunchtime treat in recent months.

Dining trucks have been showing up. Some days, so many of them line up on Wilshire Boulevard that you can have your choice of barbecue, organic sandwiches, two or three kinds of Korean fare or Mexican food from a traditional taco truck. A dessert truck also shows up occasionally.

The trucks, most of them anyway, serve good food at a good price. And it’s kind of fun to line up on the sidewalk and exchange a little banter with others who work in your office tower or in the building next door. I dare say, a little community gets formed in those lines.

But, alas, the trucks were scant last week. In fact, one day at noon I walked out to see which food trucks were at the curb, but nary a one was to be seen.

The reason: A few days earlier, a squad of police swept through and cracked down. Police kept up the pressure in subsequent days.

Some truck operators said the police ticketed them for any little infraction. If their long trucks poked six inches beyond their parking space, boom, there was a $75 ticket. At least one truck got towed off. Worse, they claimed the police threatened them with $5,000 fines if they didn’t move on. They said police told them they’d gotten a lot of complaints from established restaurants nearby.

Who complained? Restaurateurs aren’t happy. They’ve reportedly discussed the matter and contacted their councilman. But they’ve denied calling police, and some suggested the cops acted on their own. I called the Police Department, and a spokesman wouldn’t say anything on the topic.

But the question of who blew the whistle doesn’t matter. That’s because there really is no whistle to be blown.

I mean, exactly what’s the infraction here? Minor parking violations? If so, having the police conduct a sustained crackdown on food trucks is akin to calling in the 13th Bomb Squadron to take out those Asian fruit flies they found in Orange County last week.

No, the real infraction here is entrepreneurship. This city simply doesn’t like it. A business that’s new, different or bold is automatically suspect. The attitude: Someone should stop this. Call the authorities. Blow the whistle. We can’t have innovators selling good food at a low price.

Please don’t use the stupid excuse that the trucks are “unfair” to established restaurants. What’s unfair? That the trucks figured out a better and low-cost way of delivering lunch to customers? If innovation is unfair, then MP3s are unfair to CDs and Internet bloggers are unfair to daily newspapers.

If it’s true that established restaurants complained about the trucks, then shame on them. What they’re really complaining about is competition.

And if it’s true that the police responded to restaurants’ complaints, then double shame on them. For police to harass one business because a competing business whined is repugnant. Actually, it’s scary. That would make the police the apparatchik of an overreaching government, a government that’s stepping in to quash entrepreneurs.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’d prefer the police to stay busy on the gang problem and such and not worry about whether some food truck is parked a few too many inches from the curb.

If the police continue harassing the food trucks, the trucks probably will just go to other towns, ones that aren’t so fearful of good food at a good price. Bobby Allen, who’s general manager of the Green Truck, one of the targeted trucks, said the real losers will be “the community we built” the community of customers who just wanted a good lunch.

He’s right. I do feel like I lost my lunch. In more ways than one.

Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at

[email protected].