Posted on 03/05/2010 6:03:30 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Ty Brann likes the neighborly feel of his local hardware store. The fourth-generation Ventura County resident and small business owner has been going to the B & B Do it Center on Mobile Avenue in Camarillo for many years. His company, Kastle Kare, does pest control, landscaping and plant care, and he’s a B & B regular.
So when he learned the county had told B & B it could no longer put out its usual box of doughnuts and coffee pot for the morning customers, Brann was taken aback. Poll Should coffee and doughnuts be considered food service? Yes No Not if it was made at a permitted location, like a doughnut shop.
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“I was a little outraged, to be honest,” said Brann, 45. “They were putting this stuff out there out of the kindness of their hearts. They called it their little pink box of love. I thought it had to be a joke.”
An anonymous customer complaint to the county brought health inspectors to the store, who determined its tradition of more than 15 years of offering coffee and doughnuts to customers violated food-handling regulations.
“We’ve been doing this since we bought the place 15 years ago and the previous owner was doing it, too,” said Randy Collins, 42, co-owner with his parents of B & B. “We simply weren’t aware we were causing a problem.”
Inspectors told Collins that unless he was willing to install stainless-steel sinks with hot and cold water and have a prep kitchen to handle the food, he was violating the law.
“The state health and safety code talks about food regulations,” said Elizabeth Huff, manager of community services for the Ventura County Environmental Health Division. “Anybody who handles food is subject to the regulations.”
At issue is the level of permit required for a retail establishment to offer food to the public. “What some establishments do is hire a mobile food preparation services or in some cases a coffee service,” said Huff. “Those establishments have permits and can operate in front of or even inside of the stores. But where the public has access to food, permitting is required.”
Huff indicated there are several levels of permits, depending on the store’s needs. All carry various costs.
“We’re certainly working with the health department,” said Collins. “We want to be in compliance with the law.”
But some customers are upset.
“This is a small town,” said Brann. “I don’t think they did anything wrong, I mean, just coffee? Come on. This seems a little overboard and heavy-handed to me.”
“It’s the money, not the sanitation,” Thomas Frye, 75, of Camarillo said of the county’s motivation. “We’ve abandoned common sense where the need for licenses and fees are more important than tradition.”
Grace Pugliese, 70, of Camarillo said customers should be allowed to make up their own minds on a doughnut. “I understand where they’re coming from,” she said, “but we are losing that small-town feel.”
Only when Starbucks files an ‘anonymous’ complaint.
I am betting this is what happened. Some business love big government socialism.
Do donuts really count as food?
The government gets to TELL you whether you can give donuts to your customers? Might have to draw a line HERE. Even the frog would recognize that the water is getting too warm.
Hey, wait a minute. Don’t those guys work for US? I don’t particularly like my employees uppity.
This little bit is quite telling:
An anonymous customer complaint to the county brought health inspectors to the store, who determined its tradition of more than 15 years of offering coffee and doughnuts to customers violated food-handling regulations.
So it wasn't some *health inspector* who happened into the shop and saw an open box of doughnuts on the counter next to the coffee pot, some busybody had to notify the authorities, who apparently had nothing better to do, no meat processing plants to inspect, I guess all the peanut processing spots are okee-dokee as well, no emails in their system demonstrating they are knowingly sending out tainted peanuts, people going to die ... oh no, we have to take care of renegade old-fashioned and jelly-filled. Right.
Do you remember the story of the young girl who was making bologna sandwiches in her kitchen, taking them out to the homeless in her neighborhood so they could at least have something to eat? Gubmint shut her down, she was disallowed her kindness because her kitchen wasn't inspected, she didn't own *proper* equipment, etc. And if I recall my time-line correctly, it was not too long after this episode that the people began getting very sick, a couple of toddlers died I believe, from eating Burger King burgers, a chain who presumably has *proper* equipment, health inspection, rules and regs, etal.
No doughnuts on the counter, as noted up thread, are banks now going to stop putting out the cookies with the customer coffee? Are these places even going to be able to offer coffee any more??
We have long passed the point where common sense reigns.
Seems this is happening in many places. I participate in an antique show in Tennessee. The producers of this show have always had dounuts, water, coffee, etc. for all the vendors. This February we were told the City had informed them they could no longer give out free food.
For 40+ years the women at a Catholic church in my town made soup on Wednesdays to take to the homeless shelter. They all came to the church kitchen to make the soup. City shut it down because they weren’t compliant with health regulations. There have been complaints in this town for years that the health department is arrogant and heavy handed. You can’t even do a good deed anymore.
Gee, I wonder which corporate scum (Starbucks? Dunkin Donuts?) dropped an “anonymous tip” against youse guys.
It’s insanity like this that’s got the American people so riled up and angry these days.
The trouble is, this kind of governmental abuse of power is so pervasive and widespread that most people have no idea how to stop it or even slow it down.
Is it any wonder so many young in the country don't understand charity doesn't go through government, paying taxes and having services provided to some doesn't absolve your obligation to Him?
It's really so bad, when a true kindness of the heart is destroyed this way.
I don’t think it was Dunkin since the dounuts came from there....but who knows. No sanity in our governments anymore.
From personal experience, I can tell you that Board of “Health” Nazis are among the most power-drunk individuals on the face of the earth. I’ve never met a single one of them who was worth knowing in any way.
If I had my druthers, there would BE no Boards of “Health”, but since that ain’t gunna happen...they should be leashed and muzzled until SOMETHING ACTUALLY HAPPENS.
For example, they should have NO SAY in this hardware store’s business at all, unless the guys down at the store are dragging their customers over to the coffee pot and donuts and shoving a gun in their ribs until they eat.
Never in my life have I met such a bunch of sniveling busybodies. Bleech! Just the thought of them makes me sick. And this sort of thing is EVERYWHERE today! What’s wrong with people? Do they really want some bureaucratic nincompoop making decisions on donut consumption for them?
Personally, I’d rather take my chances on my own than have them sticking their noses under every tent.
/rant
Regards,
Yep, we’ve got to be liberal and nanny staters, and throw any common sense out the window.
Why is it that the same liberal mindset that seeks to ban a harmless thing like having donuts in a store, seeks to push homosexuality and sex and condoms in schools?
That reduces to a simpler formulation: “We’ve abandoned common sense when government has more rights than the individual.”
“Why is it that the same liberal mindset that seeks to ban a harmless thing like having donuts in a store, seeks to push homosexuality and sex and condoms in schools?”
Most left wingers hate anything good, and promote anything evil. Mental disorder.
“You need permits and crap just to have a coffee pot??”
Only when Starbucks files an ‘anonymous’ complaint.
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Why would Starbucks care? It’s not as if they are in the coffee business80)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Mjnzqi5gs
“From telling parents they can not have their babies circumcized”
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Where is this happening? This might be one government intrusion I could actually get behind, I consider circumcision an abomination, whether done to girls or boys or both makes no difference.
“We have long passed the point where common sense reigns.”
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You can say that as many times as you like. We pass nitpicking laws to treat people as if they don’t have the brains to prepare their own food and at the same time our absurd clown-in-chief is hell bent on passing a bill that will literally destroy the greatest medical system on Earth. How many millions of lives will that cost?
Apparently, a bill has been introduced in the Assachusetts legisl00ture to that affect.
It happens to be a Jewish Religious Practice AND is a matter of Cleanliness AND helps stop the spread of STDs.
Plus since when is it any business of your’s How families practice the medical care of their babies.
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