Illegal Food Distributers!
I’ve got breaking news for you. Homemade food tastes better. I know this may come as a shock, but any foodie recognizes this fact. Now the question turns to why does it taste better? It’s probably because it’s made by people who actually care. When you cook for your family or when you cook for friends you work hard to ensure that they receive the best food possible. When you work in a large scale commercial kitchen you spend your time making sure the food just passes the minimum standards. So where is this rant going? Well apparently people who care about food have been using social networking tools to meet up at locations in San Francisco and sometimes exchange money for food (God forbid!). The health department has been working with the police to shut down these meet ups because the food vendors don’t have magic pieces of paper (government licenses). Obtaining the aforementioned magic paper is pretty darn expensive:
Getting the proper permits for pushcart food sales can be prohibitively pricey for street vendors. The Department of Public Health requires applicants to submit for a permit to operate, a sanitation certificate, and a fire marshall application. The fee for a pushcart on private property costs $737, on top of an environmental health application fee of $298. That’s easily beyond the reach of both the latest wave of sellers and of those with a history of selling tamales and other snacks to the day laborers who cluster on César Chavez and nearby streets.
So who suffers? We do. We don’t get any tasty tamales, sexy soup, or gourmand goulash. We’re relegated to the bland industrialized offerings that the government deems “healthy”. I think I speak for all of us when I say that sucks.
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