CALABASAS, CA — The city here will become the second in the nation to adopt a mobile carwash ordinance, following Fort Worth, TX, according to The Los Angeles Daily News. Under the new ordinance, mobile carwash owners must obtain a permit and prove they properly discharge runoff water.
Although the two cities are the first to specifically regulate mobile carwashes, they are not alone in their attempts to reign in the industry. In June 2007, Temecula, CA, targeted mobile carwashes for river pollution, but did not apply any new permitting procedures or ordinances to the businesses. The city of Franklin, TN, did the same thingin March of that year.
In the opposite approach, Lubbock, TX, Mayor David Miller fought to have mobile carwashes exemptfrom a state law regarding runoff water, but was not successful.
The Sept. 10 story said the ordinance, which goes into effect later this month, also effectively bans charity carwashes, although it allows residents to wash their personal vehicles at home.
According to the story, the city acted after “a barrage” of mobile carwashes started showing up on residential and commercial driveways and parking lots, which violated the Clean Water Act because many had no proper equipment to capture runoff and chemicals used to detail expensive cars.
City officials originally wanted to ban all mobile carwashes but amended the ordinance after residents complained.
The businesses were "picking up momentum in the city," said Environmental Services Supervisor Alex Farassati in the story. "Our city's demographic includes people who are very wealthy who have six cars at one home and are not going to take them one by one to a carwash. They were inviting these people to wash their cars at their homes."
Some mobile carwash operators like the idea, saying consumers would be protected from fly-by-night businesses that don't take responsibility for damaging a car.
"It's like any other business. You're going to have people who want to fly under the wire,” mobile carwashes Javier Sarabia told the newspaper.
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