One customer, a mental-health counselor, jokes that he ought to be giving Bill Jennings therapy.

"He's beyond that," another guy quips on a rainy day at Bill's Hot Dogs in Providence Forge.

"Look at him, he's got a skirt on," observes a third customer, firefighter Mike Edwards, making fun of Jennings' apron. The hot-dog vendor smiles. He's a fan of the wisecrack himself.

Jennings, a 65-year-old Quinton resident, says he realized a teenage dream by opening the hot-dog stand in February 2004 in a concession trailer at U.S. 60 and Courthouse Road.

But an effort by New Kent County officials to regulate mobile food units has Jennings worried he might have to shut down. The Board of Supervisors could decide the future of the hot-dog stand after a public hearing tonight.

New Kent issued Jennings a business license, but officials later told him the hot-dog stand was not in compliance with the zoning ordinance. That's because the ordinance does not list mobile food units as a permitted use.

Last year, officials started a process to regulate such businesses. They introduced an amendment to the zoning ordinance that would have set rules, including one requiring mobile food units to be moved each day of operation to a Virginia Department of Health-approved commissary for cleaning and food stocking.

Jennings said that would add costs and headaches to his operation and effectively force him to close.

After opposition by Jennings and his supporters, officials drafted another amendment that includes a provision for "stationary transportable self-contained food units" that would allow Jennings to keep running his business without changing the business plan. That proposed amendment, which would be part of a larger rewrite of the zoning ordinance, will be the topic of discussion at tonight's meeting.

His trailer has running water and an electrical hookup. He receives food deliveries at the trailer, and he cooks to order.

Bill's Hot Dogs is the only business licensed to operate in New Kent that falls into the stationary category. There are three others, including an ice-cream vendor, that fall into the "transportable" mobile food unit category. County Planning Manager Rodney A. Hathaway said the proposed rules for those three businesses would not drastically change the way they operate.

In anticipation of tonight's Board of Supervisors meeting, Jennings has been distributing fliers that urge customers to speak up at the public hearing. "Save Bill's Hot Dogs from impending doom!" it reads. He also said he has collected more than 350 signatures on a petition supporting him.

"I'm not working illegal," Jennings said last week. "What are they going to do? Come back and close me down after four years when they gave me permits? I don't think that's constitutional."

Hathaway said an amendment to the zoning ordinance is needed to prevent too many unregulated mobile food operations from sprouting up and creating "competition against the type of [restaurant] business that we are trying to attract to the county."

Members of New Kent's restaurant community have complained that mobile food operations steal business while enjoying lower overhead costs and a lesser investment.

Hathaway says the county isn't seeking to shut Jennings down, noting that officials instead have been working with him. A state health official said Jennings has done fine on inspections and that no enforcement actions have been taken against him.

Jennings is open for lunch weekdays. His red baseball cap promises "almost world wide" hot dogs "and more" -- a phrase he says is "just something I dreamed up." He answers his phone not with hello but with "hot dog."

A steel and vinyl carport shelters three wooden picnic tables on a gravel floor. Besides hot dogs, the menu offers hamburgers, corn dogs, a shrimp basket and pork chop sandwiches.

"I don't sell no off-the-wall junk here," Jennings says.

Loyal customers include construction workers, firefighters and retired residents of New Kent and Charles City, among others. Jennings tells them jokingly to hurry up and order. He doesn't have all day.

Last week, John Royster walked up and ordered some barbecue and a bologna sandwich. The Charles City resident has eaten at Bill's about once a week since it opened. Jennings, as usual, asks Royster if he just moved to town.

"Not only is the food good," says Edwards, the firefighter. "But you get to be harassed by Bill -- take the punishment as you eat."
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com.

Mobile food businesses
How other localities in the Richmond area handle them:
Chesterfield: Allowed; restrictions include placement on a lot or parcel occupied by a permanent business. Stands can operate no more than three days during a seven-day period.
Hanover: All retail, including food sales, must take place inside a building.
Henrico: Generally not allowed, though some operate in parking lots of stores. They are considered tenants of the anchor business, not mobile vendors.
Richmond: Allowed in designated zones; requires a sidewalk vendor's license and liability insurance.