Department of Health Bans Street Vendors From Selling Seafood
If this is wrong, than I don’t want to be right…
I’m all for the Department of Health making sure our food is safe to eat, but this is ridiculous! Apparently at the end of last year, the Department of Health adopted a resolution that rewrote many parts of the health code as it pertains to street vendors. It takes effect January 1st of this year, and if enforced it’s going to have a huge effect on Midtown Lunch’ing. Namely, no more fish, shellfish, or seafood from street vendors. Here it is direct from the newly rewritten Article 89:
§89.19 f(2) Fish. No fish, shellfish, or any food consisting of or made with an aquatic animal, as defined in Article 81, shall be prepared, stored, held for service or sold from a mobile food vending unit.
The full ramifications of this are just sinking into my brain right now, and it’s easy to joke about the “safety” of eating seafood from a truck. But think about all the great seafood options being offered right now from carts and trucks in Midtown alone… the fried cod from the Schnitzel Truck, Tianbula from the NYC Cravings Truck, and the always delicious salmon and tilapia served by Kwik Meal (shown above.) And worst of all, what the hell is Kim’s Aunt Kitchen Cart going to sell?! This must be some kind of a bad dream.
And that’s not all.
It also goes on to create new rules regarding the proper refrigeration of fruits and vegetables, that could put potentially put the smoothie vendors out of business.
§89.19 f(3) Processed fruits and vegetables. Mobile food vending units in which sliced, peeled or processed fruits and vegetables are prepared, stored, held for service or sold shall have adequate refrigeration at all times, and shall during a pre-permit inspection. Mobile food vending units only authorized to sell whole fresh pre-packaged fruits and vegetable may not sell or hold for service sliced, peeled or processed fruits and vegetables and as such refrigeration for such units is not required..
It’s kind of sad when laws meant to provide “better” food, end up having the opposite effect. The new rules take effect on January 1st, but I haven’t talked to any of the vendors to find out what they are going to do…
Posted by Zach Brooks at 10:15 am, December 15th, 2009 under Seafood, Street Vendor Issues.
32 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
32 Comments
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seriously gonna miss those fried shrimps…
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I know what I’m having for lunch today
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well, i guess that “softens” the blow of losing the trusty Happy Well Being House Cart.
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isn’t there talk of whether the health dept is gonna go after pizza places that have premade pies ready to sell slices. lol
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And this applies to the Redhook vendors as well? No more ceviche mixto!?! How can this be.
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Do we really have to start some sort of protest or letter writing campaign to get the DOH to back off? After all, the SLA was found to be corrupt, I have no doubt that the Applebees, TGI Friday’s and McDonald’s of the world are greasing palms to make the tastier, cheaper, better alternatives go away and to boost their bottom lines.
Maybe an eat-in in front of their offices?
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I have never had fish from a cart, nor would I, but for those who are affected, you have my sympathies….
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I know where I’ll be going for lunch!
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Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Just another example of a government trying to do the right thing, but still has their head so far up their ass, that they don’t know how to do something right.
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weak sauce
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Does this mean no more ceviche from random unlicensed sidewalk coolers?
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This is ridiculous
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Any idea of where this is really coming from? That is, what lobby has such an interest in shutting out seafood from the carts? Is there that much seafood sold in fast food places? It seems to me as others have said, spoiled chicken or beef would be just as dangerous as spoiled seafood.
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NO MORE FRIED SHRIMP??!?
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100% Healthy and Halal and their sister cart will be affcted.
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Generally I don’t mind stupid rules because lets face it, lots of rules are dumb. But like what DessertBuzz said, I really wonder where the hell they came up with this stupid idea.
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Maybe because most frozen seafood is supposed to be kept frozen and carts dont generally have freezers, and most fresh fish is supposed to be stored on ice, and carts can’t effectively handle fresh fish safely.. In their opinion. Im just guessing. It’s certainly storage related
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Smells fishy.
That’s insane. Meat held at wrong temperatures is just as dangerous. Rice spoils easily as well.