Shasta county health rep, Redding vendor speak on food street vendor educational outreach

REDDING, Calif. — Redding police and Shasta County health representatives are checking on street food vendors in the city.

They carried out educational outreach on June 19, requesting four vendors temporarily stop their work, as police said these vendors were operating without the required licenses and permits.

RPD said food vendors must have a valid business license, in addition to permits required for vendors working on public sidewalks.

Shasta County Department of Resource Management Senior Environmental Health Specialist Fern Hastings told KRCR that, to operate a temporary food booth, you have to operate it at an event and you have to have a permit and pass inspections.

“They were just operating on a street corner when nothing was going on, without permits,” Hastings said of the vendors who were contacted during the outreach. “We don’t know where their food came from. We do know they all came from Sacramento. Their food was all sitting out without refrigeration.”

Hastings said this was in response to complaints sent to the city, telling the Northstate’s News there have been 11 complaints in just under one month.

RELATED: RPD responds to complaints by educating street food vendors on city permit requirements

RPD officials told KRCR that, moving forward, they plan to carry out enforcement if street food vendors don’t comply.

Victor Amador-Torres, a co-owner of Gorditas Lucy on Hartnell Avenue, said he feels fulfilling the requirements is not too difficult, though he shared that one challenging element is finding the resources to get going.

“We didn’t quite know where to start, and mostly it was just fixing up the truck,” Amador-Torres said. “[Hastings] helped, let us know what was wrong with it, and we went to people around town to help us fix it.”

Amid social media backlash to the outreach, Amador-Torres told us he feels ensuring food safety is the priority of the county and police.

“There’s a lot of effort that goes into setting up a food vending business. It almost feels unfair to see someone set up a tent and be able to do the same thing,” Amador-Torres said before adding, “I don’t think that it points to anything larger to be honest. Fern is and the county’s always been nice to us. They’ve always led us the way, have never spoken to us with any prejudice or anything like that.”