A city council debates whether to ban food trucks from operating within 200 feet of brick-and-mortar restaurants. Claim [1]: Restaurant owners argue that food trucks impose unfair competition because trucks pay far lower fixed costs, such as property tax and long-term lease obligations. Claim [2]: An economist on the council responds that lower fixed costs do not by themselves establish unfairness, since the relevant question for policy is whether food trucks and restaurants are competing to serve genuinely substitutable consumer demand, and survey data show most food-truck customers are buying a quick meal they would not otherwise have purchased from a sit-down restaurant at all.