Update to a previous story. Governor Perry doesn’t need to “poach” any businesses from California, they are being driven out
Via Watch Dog
Why do multiple Texas cities want to host the Sriracha factory that caused health problems in California?
That’s the question Texas Monthly put in a headline Thursday, begging the more obvious question about whether those health problems are real.
The answer, and the reason the story is generating even more interest than Toyota’s recently announced move to Texas, is simple: Californians and Texans both appreciate hot sauce, and Huy Fong Foods’ iconic rooster sauce is awesome. (If you want to see what the fuss is about, soak some hamburger patties in rooster sauce, then grill and serve with Gruyere, avocado and spinach.)
The story also fits the familiar narrative of successful businesses fleeing the regulatory or tax hassles of California for the freedom of Texas. We can appreciate it whenever a journalist stops to question an easy narrative, but in this case the conventional wisdom is also the truth. Huy Fong Foods is demonstrably harmless, a victim of oppressive government.
Huy Fong Foods, which sells some 20 million bottles a year of its Sriracha sauce, built a $40 million plant in Irwindale after the city offered a loan on generous terms. After Huy Fong Foods repaid the loan early, the city turned on the company, filing a lawsuit, siccing air regulators on the company and declaring it a public nuisance.
In Texas Monthly’s telling, that came “after reports of ‘burned eyes, inflamed asthma,’ and an entire birthday party being forced to flee indoors ‘after the spicy smell descended on the festivities.’ That sounds like a joke, but in late November, a judge granted a partial injunction.”
It is a joke, a cruel one, to invite a chile bottler to town and then complain the air smells like chiles. It doesn’t become less of a joke just because a joke of a California judge takes it seriously. (And that is the complaint; even the activist judge acknowledged there was “a lack of credible evidence” linking the factory to any health problems.)
The real story, which the magazine’s own readers quickly pointed out, is that almost all of the complaints about smells came from four households, one of them belonging to the son of a councilman trying to chase the company off.