When a Los Angeles Public Health Officer is on their way to a business, do they also take note of illegal businesses that dot our city? I’m as sympathetic as the next person, and I understand these people are trying to make a living wage, but we also can’t allow them to sell food products where no inspection of cooking facilities can take place. This is basic common sense because I don’t know if your home is sanitary, food has been cooked to the right temperature, or that it’s been maintained at the proper temperature. Food born illness account for around 3,000 deaths, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 48 million cases of sickness in America.
The reason we have health food guidelines is to ensure the safety of food being served and when we couple these inspections with a business license, we have accountability; in case someone gets sick or dies as a result of food. Driving in heavy immigrant communities I see brick and mortar restaurants competing with a $50 “pop-up” complete with plastic tables & chairs being operated out of a car trunk. Fancy entrepreneurs splurge for a “roach coach” (food van) and submit their mobile kitchen to regular inspections, sometimes. Empty properties and parking lots are abundant in the wake of unnecessary shut downs, but these salmonella shanties and botulism bodegas have no shame and operate within feet of legitimate businesses for added foot traffic.
I know of at least three businesses in the Los Angeles area that have been the target of the Los Angeles Health Department and had their livelihoods threatened. The owner of Bread & Barley tired to stop his closure by also stopping the movement of the health inspector and Bravery Brewery in Lancaster was shuttered on one of busiest days of the year, Super Bowl SUNDAY! Tinhorn Flats restaurant and saloon is the latest in a saga that has plagued Los Angeles. Cities and inspectors are overjoyed by their actions because we see them dancing on camera while ignoring public outcry to reopen our cities. One city, Burbank California, has even gone as far as erecting a fence and paying for security to ensure that a defiant legal business is brought to heel.
In Toronto we’ve seen the crown arrest defiant restaurateurs only to drop their cases and dismiss fines. Legally, no city can defend confiscating private property therefore denying a person the right to support their family. Tinhorn flats is no exception and I expect the city to remove the fence soon. Right Side Broadcasting showed up last weekend to show their support and over 77k have watched the livestream. In my own investigations of why these cities closed legal businesses and allowed illegal businesses to operate, the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, simply referred me to the Los Angeles Department of Records for specifics. No one at the Health Department answered a single question and deferred to another agency. When I called the Department of Records they informed me that the citation of illegal businesses or “pop-ups” was directed through the Department of Environmental Safety. We can rest easy knowing that no one is inspecting food carts selling e.coli and cholera champurrado, because those places have a line around the block, plus, they don’t pay sales tax, health permits, or for business licenses. Round and round I went with the city of Los Angeles, but ultimately found myself in a game of chasing my own tail so I wonder, is the Department of Public Health, really about health?
