Patrick Jansen sold his own brand of smash burgers at local breweries every week for the last two years without much trouble. But that changed in March, when county officials reviewed his unique pop-up food vending business.
"They saw I was working all the time and didn't know what to do," Jansen said. "I just got shut down ... and so I was in limbo for two and half months."
The issue was his permit for Carbon Pop didn't allow him to work as often as he did. So, when it lapsed, officials at Public Health and Social Services refused to grant him a new one. This sparked an uproar in the community.
"Every venue I was at was emailing, calling, texting every county commissioner and all the health department officials because everyone was really upset that they shut me down for such arbitrary reasons," he said.
Jansen, a 43-year-old Olympia man, went from flipping burgers to advocating for pop-up businesses. He succeeded in his efforts earlier this month when the Board of County Commissioners unanimously directed staff to immediately allow unlimited pop-up food events with monitoring.
"It's great," he said. "After two and half months of trouble and economic struggle for me personally ... the crazy part is nothing's changed. We're just doing like were. I'm very relieved but why was this so much trouble?"
The county's solution had to comply with state law while balancing fairness to applicants, costs and public health, Art Starry, Environmental Health Division Director, told the county board on June 2.
State law allows temporary food establishments if they operate at a fixed location in two scenarios, according to county documents. They can either be permitted with a fixed menu for no more than 21 consecutive days at an event or no more than three days a week at a fixed location with a fixed menu at an approved, recurring, organized event.
The key word there is "approved." Under the county's new policy, unlimited pop-up events per year are essentially approved.
Prior to this, the county's code limited approved events to community celebrations, fairs and four "self-events" sponsored by an individual establishment or organization.
Sammy Berg, Thurston County's senior environmental health specialist, presented the board with three policy change possibility. But the board ultimately chose Option A, which was the most lenient.
Option B allowed pop-up vendors to operate up to 20 times each year at a maximum of four different venues with a multiple event permit, Berg said. Option C allowed pop-up vendors to operate for just four months at up to four venues with the same permit, he said.
In all of the options, each vendor would be inspected at each site or venue they operate at, the first time they operate and however often as needed, according to the documents. The vendor also must submit a schedule to Environmental Health, detailing where and when they will operate.
One downside with Option A is that the $485 permit fee for high-risk events does not cover more than four inspections, per the documents.
"If we had 50 people that wanted to do all this, that would be a big strain on our system," Berg said to the board.
Berg told The Olympian the county will allow any pop-up vendor to operate under the new rules. However, staff will return to the board to review the changes in November 2022 and consider a permanent solution.
"We will monitor how this works for the vendors as well as continuing to verify safe food preparation through additional inspections and then report back to the board at the end of the year," he said.
Each board member has expressed a level of skepticism about the current fee structure.
Commissioner Gary Edwards called the permit fee "a crazy amount of money" on June 2. During an earlier briefing on May 24, Edwards indicated he wanted a less burdensome solution.
"I see this as a bureaucratic process that wants to be more bloated, more bloated and more bloated," Edwards said. "I don't think we need to have inspectors in every scene, every time, doing everything."
Commissioner Tye Menser said he believes the public would support a more lenient policy and a lower fee, especially for small events such as fundraisers.
"We don't throw safety out the window, but it's spot inspection and we allocate a little more money to support that as a deterrent, get education involved," Menser said on May 24. "Anything that's creative, I'm supportive."
Commissioner and board chair Carolina Mejia called the fee "really high" on May 24. She said it might hinder small businesses and small-scale events. In the case of recurring pop-up food events, she pointed out vendors often return to the same locations every week.
"I think staff resources don't need to be used every time, especially if they are going to the same locations throughout the summer," she said.
Changing the fee would require a 2 — 3-month process to amend the county code, said General Manager Ramiro Chavez.
Prior to deciding on Option A, Mejia said she wanted vendors to be permitted as quickly as possible but indicated she would be open to a code amendment at a later date.
"Option A is less arbitrary on our part," Mejia said. "When it comes to a long-term solution, maybe that would be looking at our fee structure and looking at how our code is written to get that."
