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The food truck laws in Michigan in general are pretty annoying. You need to have a commissary kitchen where all the food is actually made in order to be in com
by oxymoran 8y ago
The food truck laws in Michigan in general are pretty annoying. You need to have a commissary kitchen where all the food is actually made in order to be in compliance. Which defeats one of the main points of having a food truck to begin with(not having to rent or own an expensive building)
- NickBusey 8y agoThis is also the case in Boulder, CO. In addition to that, each truck is required to install a fire suppression system that start around $3,000.
- jimmaswell 8y agoGotta love when regulations are why we can't have nice things.
- matt4077 8y agoThis reads like a complaint about vaccines because nobody has seen Polio in like a lifetime... Just as a reminder: Up until the early 20th century, any large city that wasn't home to a Molasses-based catastrophe had at some point burned more or less completely down, usually killing thousands: Chicago, SF, London are well known.
- alonmower 8y agoNot sure if you were alluding to this with your comment but people DO complain about vaccines because they haven't seen the widespread ill effects of their not existing
- Kalium 8y agoIt's highly probable that the commenter to which you have responded chose their wording precisely because of how correct your point is.
- vec 8y agoIf by "nice things" you mean salmonella and grease fires, then sure. Not to defend Boulder, specifically, but when thinking about regulations it's really easy to tally up "all" of the costs and benefits without crediting them for the nonexistent costs of the bad things that didn't happen.
- WillPostForFood 8y agoIt’s just as easy easy to justify regulation by adding up all the imaginary costs that will be avoided.
- jonwachob91 8y agoKitchen Fires and food poisoning are not imaginary.
- jimmaswell 8y agoHow exactly does preparing food in the truck lead to food poisoning? Why doesn't your backyard grill need a fire suppression system?
- jonwachob91 8y ago1) If cooked food comes in contact with a surface that raw meat was prepped on, the cooked food can become tainted. 2) Most cities fire code say that your backyard grill is required to be a certain distance from the building structure (my local ordinance says 15ft), it just so happens that most people ignore the local ordinances. Those codes are b/c of grill fires.
- tokyodude 8y agoLarge portions of the world don't have these regulations and seems to be doing just fine. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore to name a few are full of food stands preparing food at the stand.
- avar 8y agoA quick search reveals https://www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Mobile_Food_Vehicle_Application_2017-1-201611231158.pdf https://www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/Mobile_Food_Vehi... > a restaurant fire suppression system shall be required for all cooking operations that produce grease-laden vapors. These systems can be activated automatically or manually to dispense chemicals to suppress the flames of a fire I.e. it's not "each truck". You can have a food truck that doesn't create that particular fire hazard without an expensive fire suppression system.
- jonwachob91 8y agoNot sure about Michigan, but Florida has commissary co-working type spaces. Show up with your ingredients, cook, clean-up, peace out. Most of the co-working type commissarys are pay as you go (hourly) type deals. It's common amongst Farmer Market vendors.
- learc83 8y agoWe have commissary co-working spaces in Georgia too, but they were pretty expensive last time I checked. I think the law here requires that you have a dedicated space that isn't shared.
- dkasper 8y agoCalifornia also requires a commissary kitchen.
- awad 8y agoNew York (City) as well, IIRC. Street-side cooking is more akin to heating up already prepared food. San Francisco, too. While it seemingly defeats the purpose, the flip side of the argument is that it is easier to ensure base levels of hygiene. The article itself, btw, is a pretty nifty use of PostGIS viz. Edit: Originally had all of California included but it was pointed out that my knowledge was limited to San Francisco as LA does not have the same requirements.
- WillPostForFood 8y agoIn Los Angeles, food trucks must be parked at a commissary, but it isn’t required that food prep be done there.
- awad 8y agoAh, I might have been too over-reaching. I know it's certainly true in San Francisco.
- baddox 8y agoI’m not so certain. I know of prominently-positioned pizza trucks in SF that are clearly cooking their pizzas there. I doubt they are doing that illegally.
- schrodinger 8y agoA lot of the laws differentiate between foods that are dangerous when left out (eg meat) and those that aren’t (pizza supplies). I think it’s called cottage food laws?
- awad 8y ago"All mobile food vendors must operate in conjunction with a food facility, also known as a commissary, such as a licensed commercial kitchen. Thus, you will need to rent a commercial space for preparing food, and storing your inventory." https://businessportal.sfgov.org/start/starter-kits/food-truck https://businessportal.sfgov.org/start/starter-kits/food-tru... Another commenter mentioned that there may be various classifications of food such that a Pizza truck may be able to get around it due to the nature of the ingredients but I'm unfamiliar as to where those lines are drawn
- tomjakubowski 8y ago> You need to have a commissary kitchen where all the food is actually made in order to be in compliance Do you have a source for this so I can clarify my understanding? I thought that Chicago was somewhat infamous until recently for being the only major city in the US that didn't allow food trucks to cook on board. Note that requiring that a truck have a commissary is not the same as mandating that all cooking happen there. The common requirement to have a commissary is so inspectors know where to find trucks, presumably.
- captain_perl 8y agoNobody is going to let you cook in a food truck where permits are required. There's just no way to do that safely with a random truck. Even fast food franchises do all their salads centrally to avoid the Chipotle scare that happened a couple years ago.