Ceres food‑truck operators allege targeted enforcement by community development director

Two partners in the Ceres GrubHub operation told the council they have faced prolonged and costly enforcement actions they say are targeted and disruptive to their livelihoods.

“Your guys’ community development director has not stopped harassing us for about 6 months now,” said Deep Gil, who introduced himself as the owner of the Ceres GrubHub. Gil described repeated inspections, citations, and what he called confrontational behavior that led one vendor to leave the site. “We invested $1.5 million into that project…This stuff needs to stop today. Otherwise, I’m going to get my lawyer involved,” Gil told the council.

Partner Andy Sanchez said code‑enforcement visits had been “nitpicky” and cited specific examples: disputes about music (the conditional use permit allows recorded but not live music), removal of a small city logo from signage at a cost of about $800, and a $100 citation issued to a vendor who had difficulty filing an online quarterly tax payment.

Allegation and response: both speakers named the Community Development Director “Julian” as the staff member they said had taken repeated enforcement actions; the complaint included an allegation that Julian once arrived with five police officers and did not speak with vendors. Council did not take action on the public comment but several members encouraged the parties to meet with city staff to resolve the matters. One councilmember suggested a private meeting to avoid escalation; staff offered to follow up.

Why it matters: the complaints raise questions about consistent code enforcement and business support. Councilmembers asked staff to facilitate a meeting between the operators and the community development office to clarify permit rules and resolve the outstanding citations where appropriate.