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Committee recommends MOU to standardize food-truck fire inspections across municipalities
Summary
The Safety and Licensing Committee recommended approval of a memorandum of understanding between the City of Appleton and the Town of Grand Chute to establish a shared food-truck inspection decal and streamline fire inspections for mobile vendors.
The Appleton Safety and Licensing Committee on Aug. 13 voted 5-0 to recommend approval of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the City of Appleton and the Town of Grand Chute to coordinate fire inspections of food trucks at events.
Chief Hanson, representing the Appleton Fire Department, told the committee the MOU was created to close a gap in inspections for mobile food vendors that travel to events across municipal lines. "What is before you is an MOU between the town of Grand Chute and the city of Appleton for food truck inspections," Hanson said, explaining that trucks inspected by any participating municipality would receive an annually changing decal indicating inspection status.
Hanson said the memorandum is intended as a first phase and that other communities have expressed interest: "There's already been talks about something very similar to this going on in Milwaukee, and they wanna jump on and then even Madison and Eau Claire." He added that the decal would not prevent spot checks by local municipalities.
Alder Hartzheim asked whether the MOU covered only fire inspections or included health inspections as well. Hanson responded that the MOU covers fire inspections "in order to ensure that their fryers and everything are vented properly," and that event organizers could still deny trucks that lacked a displayed health license. He also said the Town of Grand Chute will maintain a central database of food trucks and that there would be no fee to vendors for inspection under the proposed agreement.
After questions from committee members, the committee voted to recommend approval; the motion passed by voice vote with all five members present indicating "aye."
