Promoter and city fire staff clash over vendor inspections at Bacon and Brew festival

Becky Hughes, speaking for Kelly Marks Events, told the City of Deltona commission at a June 12 workshop that last‑minute fire department directions and paperwork disrupted this year’s Bacon and Brew festival and led to vendor complaints and a delayed opening.

Hughes said the event originally was scheduled for Nov. 12, 2022 and was rescheduled after a hurricane. She described a sequence in which an April 17 email from Assistant Fire Chief Sharon Shivers asked food vendors to file a mobile and temporary cooking operations form with an April 19 deadline and that some vendors could not meet the two‑day turnaround: “The request was to wait the day before to call it. He did not. The weather was perfect, and K Marks received a lot of complaints and people wanting refunds.”

The complaint centered on on‑site handling the day of the event. Hughes said fire staff instructed vendor placement and redirected food trucks to a different entrance, which she said caused the festival to open an hour late and denied VIP pass holders early access they had paid for. She told commissioners that the promoter and many vendors have run events in other Central Florida cities and that this pattern of last‑minute enforcement risks losing future events to other municipalities.

Assistant Chief Sharon Shivers told the commission the fire inspectors now use a countywide sticker program approved through the Volusia County fire chiefs association to show a food truck has been inspected within the last six months and that the department uses a standardized checklist with specific code citations: “Through the fire chiefs Association group they did finally approve our policy that is County wide ... at least you know that they have been looked at somewhere in Volusia County. Within the last 6 months.”

Shivers and other fire staff also described a code provision giving the authority having jurisdiction discretion to require fixed fire‑suppression for certain portable frying equipment. Shivers said the policy was adopted because of the hazards associated with deep‑fat fryers and turkey fryers: “...because of the dangers associated with deep fat fryers and what not turkey fryers they pose a high hazard. So we just across the board made that decision not to allow them.”

Commissioners and staff focused on communication breakdowns and operational coordination. Commissioner McCool called the event’s hurricane‑related rescheduling “a unique situation” and urged increased support for vendors and clearer advance notice; he also offered to meet with the promoter to improve communication. Multiple commissioners recommended a single parks‑and‑rec point person to handle vendor intake and to ensure event coordinators receive inspection emails and follow‑up so vendors do not miss deadlines.

Public commenters and commissioners raised specific operational points that staff said they will address: copying the event coordinator on inspection emails to vendors; using the standardized three‑page general requirements checklist that the fire department says it will provide; scheduling more on‑site coordination meetings before major events; and evaluating which fields or greens are appropriate for heavy equipment to avoid damage.

Deltona staff did not propose changing fire code themselves at the meeting; Shivers said the department enforces code as written and can provide the specific code references and the county checklist to event organizers. Promoters asked the city to consider revisiting rules that prohibit open‑air frying without fixed suppression and to align Deltona’s practices with nearby municipalities where promoters say similar cooking has been allowed under different inspection approaches.

Commissioners directed staff to review staffing and coordination procedures, to look at adding a consistent parks‑and‑rec vendor contact, and to bring the county checklist and related code citations to the commission so promoters and vendors have clearer guidance going forward.