Gisborne council adopts new rules for mobile traders from November 2025

Gisborne councillors have adopted new rules for mobile traders, including the council applying discretion for insurance in higher-risk situations, requiring mandatory police checks, and applications must be filed 20 working days before the start of trading. Photo / Supplied

Gisborne councillors have adopted new rules for mobile traders.

Mobile traders typically use a vehicle, mobile shop, stall or hawker from which either goods or services are offered for sale while using a public place as the sales venue.

Incoming rules now include the council applying discretion for insurance in higher-risk situations, requiring mandatory police checks (which the applicant consents to), and applications must be filed 20 working days before trading commences.

However, some councillors worried these rules could affect reformed criminals turning a leaf, and believed insurance should be an individual choice.

Councillor Teddy Thompson said the council “should be looking at the bylaw through the lens of ‘how can we make this easier for people?’”

He wanted the 20-day provision to be reworded so that it said applications “should” be in within 20 working days of the trading start date, rather than “must” be lodged.

Additionally, insurance should be up to the person, he said.

According to the meeting’s report, the council could require vendors to obtain insurance for higher-risk situations, to manage risks such as malfunctioning gas bottles, unsecured equipment or customer injury.

“In such cases, [the] council may require the trader to have insurance so that if something goes wrong, the costs do not fall back on [the] council or the community.”

If an accident happened on council-controlled land and the vendor did not have insurance, the council could be liable for the costs, according to the report.

Thompson said, “We say it could blow up a council building; the council has its own insurance. We should not be putting extra burdens on people.”

He added that some people’s histories, including their credit rating, meant they could not get insurance, which could reduce the number of people able to become vendors.

Councillor Andy Cranston said, “The onus should be on the operator.

“If they do something that harms someone in public, scalding from food burns, traffic issues ... if they are not covered, who is covering it?”

The current bylaw, adopted in 2014, is set to lapse in mid-2026.

In April, councillors adopted a draft Mobile Traders Bylaw for consultation, which took place between April 29 and May 27 this year and received four written submissions.

The decision to adopt the bylaw had been deferred from a council meeting in August, with additional information supplied to councillors at Thursday’s meeting.

Cranston said the council had discussed police checks last time.

“It’s not overly burdensome with someone that has a traffic violation ... It’s a major offence [that matters]. We’re not trying to find minimal offences to stop their operations,” he said.

According to the meeting’s report, police checks were currently part of the application process for mobile trading, and the new bylaw would have it incorporated into its text.

No trader had been declined a licence based on a police check in the past five years, and police only provided information to the council in exceptional cases of relevant risk: “Such as serious drug or sexual offending, or where a mobile trading business may be used as a cover for unlawful activity,” read the report.

Director of internal partnerships and protection, James Baty, said the Food Act was a good example of why the council required police checks.

There were multiple examples of successful prosecutions relating to food safety, including the sales of fake pharmaceuticals and therapeutic products, he said.

He said there had been examples within the community where the Ministry of Primary Industries had prosecuted people.

“That might be at the far extreme, but that’s what we are trying to capture, so that we are not giving people a licence to trade when they have clearly been prosecuted for something of a similar nature,” he said.

Councillor Aubrey Ria said she was concerned about reformed criminals who might have been convicted in their early 20s but had no other conviction on their record for 30 years.

“I don’t want the enforcement to penalise people who are making a genuine effort to be great citizens and to get into mobile vending.”

Deputy Mayor Josh Wharehinga also shared Ria’s concerns but thought there was enough leeway in the bylaw: “To allow the likes of reformed hood-raised kids who I grew up with, who are now adults, who are trying to do different things with their lives ... to still apply for a police check and we still grant them that licence.”

He said he was supportive of the bylaw changes, and it was in the application of how the council used the bylaw.

He encouraged guidance for the council around the considerations for issuing a licence to ensure there was a focus on positive community benefit.

The Tairāwhiti Mobile Traders Bylaw 2025 will be publicly notified before October 30 and will come into effect on November 10.

Council staff will prepare public guidance to clarify how the bylaw applies to different trading scenarios.