San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
C.V. SPLIT ON PLAN TO ALLOW HOME KITCHEN OPERATIONS
County to consider proposal permitting the establishments
A year ago, Zamanta Aguilera Gamino and Baltazar Flores sat in their car and wondered how they could make money after losing their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The conversation circled around the idea that “everybody loves food,” Gamino said, so they came up with “Churros con Amor,” or Churros with Love.
With experience in the customer service and food industries, the duo launched their business from their Chula Vista home preparing churros from scratch. They’ve since been providing online orders for pickup or delivery and selling out at local farmers markets.
Under California law, San Diego County considers their family kitchen business a legal Cottage Food Operation, but those labeled Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operations, or MEHKOS, are currently not permitted.
MEHKOS, which the state allowed in 2018, can only operate in counties that have adopted an ordinance permitting the home kitchen establishments. On Sept. 15, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to create a program that permits them and in 120 days they are expected to consider adopting an official ordinance. If it passes, all cities within the county must allow MEHKOS and investigate code enforcement complaints by neighbors, such as odors, noise and traffic, while the county handles food inspections.
Cities would not have the option to opt out.
“I think it would be foolish for us to do anything but to oppose this being foisted on us by the county, as wellintentioned as they are, especially if there’s no additional funding coming to us for the burden that we’re going to, with no doubt, bear for the complaints that we get from neighborhoods and all of that,” said Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas Salas.
Councilmember John Mccann said he had several concerns. “The first is food safety,” he said, asking what would happen if someone got food poisoning.
Home kitchens would best work in rural areas, said Councilmember Jill Galvez, “maybe where you didn’t have a restaurant pretty much on every block.”
A Cottage Food Operations permit allows for the preparation and selling of low-risk food products that do not require refrigeration, such as cookies, bread or churros. A MEHKOS permit allows for cooking with ingredients that can potentially spoil. Permitted MEHKOS in California sell everything from empanadas to burritos to pastas.
To date, more than 140 MEHKOS operate in seven jurisdictions across the state, including Santa Barbara, Alameda, Lake and Solano counties. There have been no known local cases of food-borne illness connected to the home kitchens, as of May 2019, San Diego county officials said.
The state’s intent to permit MEHKOS was to promote locally produced and prepared foods and create economic opportunities for low-income families, who are often behind the businesses. Where allowed, such as Riverside County, more than 80 percent of permitted home kitchen operations are run by people of color, according to Foodnome, which calls itself the first legal marketplace for homecooked food in California.
With that same intent, county Supervisor Nora Vargas, whose 1st District includes Chula Vista, co-introduced the proposal to permit MEHKOS countywide. She said she was “disheartened to hear the opposition” from council members.
“I think the pandemic has demonstrated that so many people have been struggling,” Vargas said.
“What we’re trying to do, as we’re thinking about economic prosperity and what it looks like in this concept of mitigating COVID, is looking for opportunities to ensure that for the many folks who were innovative, including these opportunities to supplement their income, have a way to do it in a way that is safe and healthy for our communities.”
Councilmember Andrea Cardenas said she was disappointed by her colleague’s opposition. She shared how she went through a financially difficult time during her childhood and how a home kitchen sustained her family.
“My mom cooked at the house that we were able to live out of with my aunt and that’s how my parents, for three years, were able to sustain me and my family. I know that that is the reality for a lot of folks,” she said.
Cardenas also said she found irony in the city honoring a social media group, Eastlake Food to Go, which highlights local restaurants and small businesses in Chula Vista, of which “95 percent of the businesses that are promoted there are people cooking out of their houses, and now we would oppose this.”
For Jael Francisco, a Chula Vista resident who launched his cottage food operation Papas Polvoron two years ago, permitting MEHKOS would offer many more creative and economic opportunities for families like his, he said.
“I’m all for it because there are a lot of folks out there that specialize in so many types of culinary art and this would be a huge opportunity to start from home,” he said.
There is no data that shows how many MEHKOS are operating countywide, including in Chula Vista, according to county staff, but it is widely known that the small businesses have operated informally for years.
Vargas said “with or without the ordinance, I can assure you people are doing it.”
“I think it’s the responsibility of policymakers to really take a look at what is happening already and make it so that it’s safe and healthy for everyone,” she said.
Councilman Steve Padilla reiterated that the council should learn more about the topic and supervisors’ stance before sending a letter of opposition. They voted unanimously to table the matter for a future meeting.