Quote:
Originally Posted by Cook
You need to talk to someone else about writing a variance for your pit. Seriously...I used a WSM at my place for a little smoking. That isn't saying they wouldn't want you to build a pit room for it...it's hard to find someone with common sense these days.
Crazy lady came out one day (because the restaurant across the street thought they were tattling on me), and tried to tell me I couldn't use my smoker because the rules said that my food needed to be covered at all times. I explained that I carry the prepped food out in a covered pan, put it on the pit, put the cover on the pit, and remove the cooked food into another covered pan. She literally said that when I opened the pit to remove the food IT WAS, AT THAT POINT, UNCOVERED & that I was in violation. I laughed at her. LoL
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I tried going the variance route when I was smoking on my Johnson Smokers offset. They refused to even come out and look at it because they weren't approving any mobile units at that time (Onslow County). This whole mess was about 3 years ago, and just last month the city of Jacksonville and Onslow County have FINALLY decided they want mobile food trucks to be able to operate within the city limits. It used to be a $200 fee for inspection and in the same bill where they allowed mobile trucks they increased it to $500...government vultures. The bill also states that your mobile food business has to have a commissary (we have none in town or even in the county), and it can't setup within 1000 feet of any "brick and mortar" food establishment. So in terms of foot traffic that severely limits the potential to actually make any money. We had a bunch of food trucks flood the city for about two weeks, and they're pretty much all gone now.
Truth be told serving on Camp Lejeune makes the most sense. At any given time there's roughly 30,000 people on that base and the majority are concentrated where I serve lunch.
