BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Kern County Public Health completed another food vendor enforcement sweep this week, finding non-permitted activity at several locations across the county.
The county found 21 locations with no non-permitted food vending activity at the time of contact. At the same time, officials impounded one vendor's equipment while issuing moderate- and low-risk citations, as well as cease-and-desist orders, to 18 vendors.
This is not the first time the county has conducted this type of operation. At the beginning of March, County Public Health conducted a similar sweep and was then hit with a grand jury report on the topic, which the county board of supervisors responded to.
Kern County Public Health Director Brynn Carrigan said the department's goal is education and compliance, not immediate punishment, but repeated violations change that calculus.
"When we start to encounter these vendors multiple times, and we issue them a cease and desist, and we assess monetary penalties against them, and they just still continue to operate, we have to take really the next aggressive sort of punitive action against that vendor, which is impounding their equipment," Carrigan said.
To better understand what the licensing process looks like from a vendor's perspective, I spoke with Janpreet Ghumman, owner of Romi's Grill and Slice at the food truck park on Rosedale and Calloway. Ghumman said he struggled at first to figure out what he needed to get licensed, but a visit to the health department pointed him in the right direction.
"I didn't know what to do, so I was just asking around, but nobody told me what actually to do, but then finally I went down to the health inspection place over there, and they told me they gave me a list of the things that needs to be done," said Ghumman. "It took maybe one month, and I was good to go."
Kern County Public Health is asking residents who spot an unlicensed food vendor to report them through the Safe Diner portal.
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