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Rules, regulations and red tomatoes
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05/15/2006 BY BARRY EBERLING - Daily Republic FAIRFIELD — In the old days, a farmer could build a wooden shelter, put out a sign and run a produce stand. Things have grown more complicated. A host of health, safety and buildings laws can kick in if they do such things as sell pies or packaged food. Farmers may find themselves having to construct a building that looks more like a store than produce stand, complete with automatic sprinklers. Produce stand regulations have become a big issue in the quest to keep Suisun Valley a farming area and attract tourists. Instead of generating new stands, the laws often generate frustration. 
“There’s a lot of people in the
valley who would like to do things,” said Fairfield City
Councilman Jack Batson, chairman
of the Suisun Valley Advisory
Fund Committee. “But
every time they try to, they just
throw up their hands and quit.”Solano County officials told the advisory fund committee they will look at the issues. With everything from local zoning to state health laws to fire laws involved, finding ways to cut the red tape is complicated. “You’re going to have to give us a chance,” county Resource Management Director Birgitta Corsello told the advisory committee March 22. “We’re not opposed to this. . . . We have to find out how to do it.” Doug and Doreen Lum found out about the ever-evolving regulations when they relocated their The Vegetable Patch stand a few years ago. They had to construct a fullfledged building, with restrooms that meet Americans With Disability Act standards. |
They had to install a shoulder
on Rockville Road so people
could pull into the gravel lot.
The project cost about
$150,000, even though the
Lums did some of the work
themselves. They set up an awning to sell food outside at one point to keep the “old farm” atmosphere. That didn’t pass muster with county inspectors. “They came out here and told us it wasn’t up to building code and made us tear it down,” Doreen Lum said. Doreen Lum also had to take a class so she could be certified as a food manager. The class talked mostly about temperatures for meat, something that doesn’t apply to The Vegetable Patch, she said. “It’s not what people think it is,” Doreen Lum said. “It used to be fun. It used to be easy. Now there’s so many regulations.” Farmers can avoid tripping some regulations by meeting the state definition of a produce stand. They can sell only trimmed produce and eggs. They must grow the produce. But The Vegetable Patch sells jams and produce grown by other farmers. It must follow some of the same food laws as a business in a city. Suzy Parker runs her Parker Farms business in an old barn on Rockville Road that historically sold produce. She sells mostly what she grows on her own property. This allows her to meet the state produce stand definition. “I’m not hit with a lot of the things the other people are running into,” Parker said. |
But she’s wary about trying
new things that would force her
to replace the barn with a fullfledged,
up-to-code building.
Besides the expense, a new
building would be without the
rural atmosphere Parker thinks
her customers expect.
“It would be nice to have a French bread stand there,” Parker said, but she’s afraid she’d have to upgrade the barn. The stated intent of California health laws is to “assure the people of this state that the food will be pure, safe and unadulterated.” Solano County can’t enforce health laws one way in the cities and another way in rural areas, Corsello told the Suisun Valley Fund Advisory Committee. Yet Batson is hoping eventually there can be some differences, even if it means changing state laws. A Suisun Valley grower with a cherry stand open a only few weeks a year wanted to sell home-baked cherry muffins and bottled water, he said. The grower faced requirements similar to those for a restaurant, he said. Batson also mentioned the building the Lums had to build. “It’s overkill,” Batson said. “It’s excessive.” Click here to go back to Valley News |