It’s not John’s fault.

Although Clintonville Area Commission chairman John DeFourny was absent from last week’s monthly meeting, vice chairman Nick Cipiti and District 3 representative James R. Blazer II were at pains to say that neither the advisory panel nor DeFourny are to blame for a popular food truck moving out of the neighborhood.

“We have not voted to do anything,” Cipiti said. “We have not as a group taken a vote.”

At the outset of the meeting, Cipiti announced that DeFourny had contacted him about an hour earlier to say he was “not going to be able to make it.”

DeFourny has taken the most heat in the blogosphere after the owners of Yerba Buena Latin Grill announced late last month they were looking for a new location for their food truck from a private parking lot in the 4000 block of North High Street.

Carolina Guitierrez, who owns the concession trailer with husband, Carlos, said the relocation is the result of complaints city officials received from DeFourny. He, in turn, said he was only passing along concerns expressed by residents and he personally has no issue with mobile food operations.

“I’ve led no jihad against the mobile restaurants,” was how DeFourny put it.

At the outset of September’s CAC session, Blazer distributed a pamphlet entitled “City of Columbus Mobile Vending Guide,” which he said he obtained after meeting with Dana Rose, administrator of code enforcement.

The document clearly states, among other things, that setting up tables and chairs in the vicinity of a food cart is not permitted by city regulations and they may not remain on site overnight, Blazer pointed out.

“Tables and chairs are not permitted on or near the site of the cart,” the pamphlet states. “Canopies are allowed; tables or chairs are not permitted under the canopy.

“Carts are not permitted to be parked on site or stored overnight when not in use.”

“These things all have to be met with by anybody who has a cart in Clintonville, regardless of where they’re located,” Blazer said.

He added that Rose told him violators of these rules will be cited by code enforcement personnel in response to complaints.

With food carts proliferating of late, Blazer said city officials can only respond to complaints as opposed to trying to track down offenders themselves.

“It’s a relatively new thing where you have vending carts in the community itself,” he said. “Usually, they were downtown.”

“It’s not within the scope of the CAC to take any action for or against these folks,” Cipiti said.