What\u2019s next for Fresno County food entrepreneurs wanting to serve customers out of their homes now that the Board of Supervisors shot down a pilot program that would\u2019ve legalized that option for them?<\/p>\n
Some say those cooks might just have to wait for a different board to take a second shot at passing the program \u2014 or, to be more exact, the same board, just with different members.<\/p>\n
At least that\u2019s what Cultiva La Salud Executive Director Veva Islas thinks. Islas\u2019 nonprofit has been one of the organizations pushing hardest locally for the county to opt into allowing what state law calls \u201cMicroenterprise Home Kitchen Operations,\u201d or MEHKOs.<\/p>\n
The MEHKO advocate was disappointed with the board\u2019s 3-2 vote at Tuesday\u2019s meeting to kill the pilot \u2014 especially after all five supervisors voted in favor of the pilot in the first of two hearings<\/a> on the program last month.<\/p>\n Board Chair Garry Bredefeld and supervisors Buddy Mendes and Nathan Magsig cast the three \u201cno\u201d votes that tanked the program, citing a variety of concerns \u2014 from increased traffic surrounding the in-home restaurants to dissatisfaction with the single inspection of MEHKOs allowed annually under state law.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s either that they were incompetent and didn\u2019t read the ordinance the first time and just approved it, or that they were just being lobbied by the (California) Restaurant Association, who was the most vocal in opposition, and then decided to waffle,\u201d Islas said of the supervisors\u2019 vote. \u201cWhich also, to me, speaks volumes about their integrity.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lot to say about a board that unanimously approves something in its first reading and then dramatically shifts,\u201d she added. \u201cI don\u2019t think that this is a board that\u2019s reasonable (or) that we could go back to and try to make any type of gain in terms of any logical arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n But 2027 indeed promises at least two, if not three, new faces for the board. Former Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims has already clinched the District 4 seat<\/a> after a swift victory in the June primary and will take over for a retiring Mendes.\u00a0<\/p>\n In November, Fresno City Councilmember Mike Karbassi will face off against Kerman Mayor Maria Pacheco in a quest for the District 1 seat<\/a> as the current supervisor, Brian Pacheco, vies for a spot in the California State Assembly.<\/p>\n And if Magsig wins a runoff<\/a> in his bid for State Senate this fall, the District 5 seat on the board will also open up next year. Vong Mouanoutoua and Diane Pearce, who both currently hold office in Clovis, have already announced their candidacy in the event of a special election.<\/p>\n But not everyone was unhappy with the board majority\u2019s decision on the pilot. Several residents involved with the Sunnyside Property Owners Association urged the board not to approve the program without introducing more guardrails first.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Sunnyside Property Owners Association\u2019s concerns were never about who would operate these businesses or who might benefit from them. Our concerns were, and remain, focused on the neighborhood impacts of introducing commercial food operations into residential areas,\u201d the association shared in a statement Friday, \u201cincluding traffic, parking, noise, code enforcement, business licensing, and compatibility with existing neighborhoods.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe those are legitimate public policy questions that deserved careful consideration before moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n And while any potential shifts in board dynamics remain months away, local food entrepreneurs are now left figuring out where Tuesday\u2019s vote leaves them.<\/p>\n At least one told Fresnoland he\u2019s already considering shutting down his business in the wake of the board\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n Paul Samarin spoke in favor of the supervisors adopting the pilot at Tuesday\u2019s meeting, alluding to the benefits it could bring his small food business, House of Paul<\/a>, as he looks to scale up.\u00a0<\/p>\n But he left the meeting feeling \u201cheartbroken,\u201d he said in an interview Thursday, and unsure of what comes next.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s been a hard decision: to try to discern when the time is when you realize the door is closing, and you\u2019ve just got to walk away from it,\u201d he said, \u201cor when it\u2019s time to persevere and stay with it.\u201d<\/p>\n A \u2018glimmer of hope\u2019<\/p>\n Samarin launched House of Paul three years ago. As a veteran living with PTSD, he said several jobs in the \u201ccivilian\u201d world didn\u2019t feel like a great fit. That included anything from work in produce-packing plants to nonprofits.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does it matter if we produce 400,000 watermelons this month? So what?\u201d he said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t really satisfy any kind of personal need of contributing to this world.<\/p>\n Then, launching his food business changed all of that.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only does the cooking provide a therapy for me,\u201d Samarin said, \u201cbut it also allows me to kind of run my own show.\u201d<\/p>\n It started with pastrami sandwiches. He\u2019s since taken on a variety of staples of Texas-style barbecue, making all his food from scratch. He serves these at special events out of his catering trailer.<\/p>\n But his cuisine is labor-intensive and becoming more costly with the price of meat soaring. His pastrami, for instance, is a 30-day process, and it\u2019s a challenge to find enough shelf space for the volume of meat he needs to brine, even with the help of places like the Clovis Culinary Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the last six months or so, Samarin had been talking with owners of potential brick-and-mortar locations, but found he fell short of most landlord\u2019s income requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n So the opportunity to do more from his home kitchen for the time being offered a \u201cglimmer of hope\u201d \u2014 one that got extinguished this week.<\/p>\n Cooks like Samarin do have the option to sell a limited amount of prepared food out of their home kitchens through \u201ccottage food\u201d permits. That is, in fact, one of the programs that has allowed Samarin to sell some of his creations, like sourdough bread, out of his home.<\/p>\n But MEHKO could\u2019ve broadened the horizons for cooks who were, on one hand, ready to expand their offerings beyond the limited list of approved cottage foods<\/a>, and, on the other, not quite ready to take the leap to opening a brick-and-mortar operation, Islas said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe promise of MEHKO was that people were going to be able to try menus,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were going to be able to test things.\u201d<\/p>\n Why did the supervisors vote down the MEHKO pilot?<\/p>\n The proposed MEHKO pilot came after the county was awarded just under $155,000 in state grant money in 2024 to explore the feasibility of a local program.\u00a0<\/p>\n Between $20,000 and $30,000 remain to be spent on the grant \u2014 money that Fresno County Public Health Director Joe Prado said will be expended \u201cby the end of the contract term\u201d in August.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we do not plan on sending any funding back to the State,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The two-year pilot would\u2019ve allowed 66 MEHKO permits countywide. Those entrepreneurs would have been capped at serving 90 meals a week, no more than 30 in a single day and roughly $100,000 in annual revenue (subject to yearly increases through the consumer price index).<\/p>\n The program had received unanimous support from the five-member board<\/a> in its first hearing June 30, despite some contingencies. Among those were a request from Bredefeld that staff look into whether the county could require one additional unannounced health inspection per year on top of the one annually required by the state.<\/p>\n Bredefeld decided to withdraw his support on Tuesday once county staff confirmed that wasn\u2019t legally allowed under state law.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have one inspection here with no other inspection at all, unless there\u2019s a complaint,\u201d Bredefeld said. \u201cTo me, that poses a great risk to the public. I don\u2019t think there are enough guardrails in place for this.\u201d<\/p>\n Mendes also voiced concerns about dine-in options at MEHKOs. But when county counsel asked if he would want to delay the item so they could look into placing restrictions on dine-in, Mendes declined.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m already getting tired of hearing this,\u201d Mendes said before the board moved forward with a vote.<\/p>\n The proposed pilot also received some pushback from groups like the California Restaurant Association. The organization has made its voice heard on other local legislation in the past pertaining to food vendors, including when it supported higher fines for mobile food vendors<\/a> in the City of Fresno.<\/p>\n Prior to Tuesday\u2019s hearing, the statewide organization with a Fresno chapter submitted opposition letters to the county and voiced concerns at the board\u2019s previous meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cEfforts should be made by the County to nurture the brick-and-mortar restaurant community,\u201d wrote Matt Sutton, the organization\u2019s senior vice president of Government Affairs & Public Policy, in a July 14 letter, \u201cnot efforts that would effectively compromise public food safety and create an avenue for restaurant-like operations, but without all the responsibilities, costs, and restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n Multiple members of the Sunnyside Property Owners Association also voiced skepticism related to the pilot at Tuesday\u2019s meeting, particularly related to increased traffic congestion in residential areas.<\/p>\n