Sayonara Corndogs

It has been a rough year for people with for-profit rolling food stands. Fairs and festivals have closed all around us. Now local public officials are delivering another blow.

While I was waiting in line for my pork tenderloin downtown yesterday at noon, the vendor, Jenny Budde, gave me the bad news. No more weekday food trucks in downtown Fairfield.

She got the message from Wayne County Public Health Administrator Clark Griffith. In Griffith’s text message to Budde, it said there had been complaints.

So who is in charge? Who complained?

Mayor Brent Maguire says---while the city collects a fee and schedules the space in front of the courthouse---it was the Health Department who got the complaints that forced the change. The mayor says the city will continue to schedule food trucks, in front of the courthouse, but only for two weekends a month.

Griffith says the decision was made jointly by he and the Mayor because of complaints from the “brick-and-mortar” restaurants in town. Griffith says the food trailers are really in violation of regulations which restrict them to fairs and festivals. He says he is trying to find a middle ground between the law and their need to survive.

I find it all very unfortunate. The occasional corn dog in my diet doesn’t keep me from supporting local restaurants….In fact my waistline is ample proof.

I wish this had not happened.