Uncategorized

A city-ordered moratorium on new street vending licences in Toronto’s downtown core is quietly killing off the iconic hot dog cart, insiders say.

Mehran Bermah, owner of a popular cart on Albert Street behind Old City Hall, said even the widow of one stand owner wasn’t allowed to renew the licence at her husband’s former location.

“They should have a little bit of heart but they don’t,” Bermah said.

In 2014, the City of Toronto issued 267 sidewalk vending licences for a non-motorized refreshment vehicles, which includes hot dog stands — 48 new and 219 renewed.

The number of licences issued has now dropped to 194.

Boris Velkovitch, owner of Soloways Hot Dog Factory Outlet, said when he began supplying vendors in 1998 he had about 400 customers.

READ MORE ON THE ORIGINAL WEBSITE

By Sue Tiffin
Published June 12, 2018

Though visitors sometimes come to this area to escape from the hustle and bustle of their urban lives, there are just some aspects of city-life that are hard to leave behind and would be nice to bring along. Street meat, it turns out, is one of them.

For the past 20 years, David Houtorski has been distributing meat to food truck and street food vendors  and restaurants as well as consumers through his downtown Toronto hot dog factory, Soloway’s Hot Dog Factory Outlet, which was opened by an Italian family sometime in 1927 and purchased by Houtorski’s family friend in 1996.

In 1998, Houtorski built the outlet store to distribute products from the factory. Some orders for Soloway’s products come from the Niagara region, or Kingston, but it was after some campers who frequent Algonquin Park and callers with a 705-area code were asking for delivery of Soloway’s products in this region that he started thinking of expanding the business north.

READ MORE ON THE ORIGINAL WEBSITE