Maricopa County cracks down on unpermitted food vendors

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(The Center Square) – Maricopa County wants to put a stop to unpermitted food vendors.

Pointing to “dozens of reports of foodborne illness,” the Board of Supervisors in Arizona's most populous county has directed Environmental Services to seize spoiled food products, cite owners and close unlicensed operations.

In May, June and July, the agency seized more than 7,000 pounds of unsafe meat, according to the website for the county, which is home to Phoenix.

Robert Stratman, deputy director at Maricopa County Environmental Services, said this is not about mobile food units.

“We do have a mobile food program, and we have thousands of permitted mobile food establishments that operate safely and do a great job,” Stratman told The Center Square. “This was a very specific kind of subset of unpermitted vendors that came in from California and other states.”

Stratman said these vendors make up a highly organized group of individuals who operate pop-up stands.

“The most popular food item they sell is tacos al pastor,” said Stratman. “It’s pork that is on a large, vertical spit, and they carve the meat off of it and serve tacos from that.”

The group began popping up last year across Maricopa County. Stratman said complaints came in from the public as well as other permitted operations.

“We also received complaints of people becoming ill, and all the commonalities in terms of all these various cases over the last year, 30 of them, pointed to likely coming from these types of vendors,” said Stratman. “So our increased and elevated effort was specific to this one particular group of unpermitted vendors that are posing the highest risk to the public.”

More information can be found on the ESD.Maricopa.gov, which automatically directs to the Environmental Services page on the Maricopa County website. Visitors will find a variety of options, including guidance for a new application, how to file a complaint, search for a complaint, and make a public records request.

Stratman said Maricopa County wants the public to be safe.

“So getting the word out and sharing, ‘Hey, you as a consumer should do your due diligence, you should look for permits, you should look for businesses that have an inspection history that you can review yourself,’ and our inspections are available online,” said Stratman. “By reducing patronage to these unpermitted unsafe vendors, that too will drive down the prevalence of them in the community.”