Brickbat: Nail, Meet Hammer

Dimitris Kolyris / Dreamstime.com

For 25 years. Meanley and Son Hardware in San Diego has had a popcorn machine and offered free popcorn to customers. That tradition has come to an end thanks to a local health inspector, who found the store was serving food without a license. The inspector ordered store owners to get a license to serve food, which would require installing a three-basin sink, or to remove the popcorn machine and stop giving away the popcorn.

Comments

[Mot?rSteve]

Well thank God for those heroic gubmint officialz, saving us from the scourge of Free Popcorn.

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[Fist of Etiquette]

The inspector ordered store owners to get a license to serve food, which would require installing a three-basin sink...

I don't think I even want to shop for popcorn at a hardware store that doesn't know how to install a simple three-basin sink.

[sarcasmic]

Those things aren't cheap. I settled on a single basin sink in my basement and it was still several hundred dollars. Hardware stores aren't high profit businesses.

[Gindjurra]

Depends on how you build the sink. Three buckets nailed to a wall with a garden hose leading to the tap and another going from the bottom of each bucket to a floor drain would meet the requirement, and probably cost about $100 or less retail.

[Wizard4169]

Do you seriously think anybody insisting on a license to hand out popcorn is going to be reasonable? They probably have page upon page of regulations setting minimum standards for this equipment, and I'd bet this inspector will be only too happy to enforce every jot and tittle.

[LarryA]

Except that once the store installs the sink the food inspector will be required to periodically check to make sure it's clean and the soap dispenser is full and there are towels handy and the popcorn isn't stored too close to the soap and all the workers are washing their hands every time they handle non-food items and wearing hair-nets and...

[Rossami]

The issue isn't knowing how. The issue probably isn't even the cost of the sink. The real cost is in tearing up the entire store, including taking a jackhammer to the floor t run new plumbing and drains. All to install a sink that has no relevance to the operation or cleanliness of a stand-along popcorn machine.

[Gindjurra]

Garden hose to a floor drain. It's not like soap and skin oil will need wide-gauge pipes.

[Leo Kovalensky II]

You know the old saying. When you're an asshole everything looks like something you can shit on.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Best comment of the day; thank you!

[Inigo Montoya]

The police are there to provide careers for former playground bullies, and the city inspectors provide jobs for former hall monitors and those kids who would remind teachers to give homework.

This health inspector needs to be given a wedgie and a three-bowl swirley.

[SQRLSY One]

Solution here is this: Put up a new sign on the popcorn machine:

"This machine dispenses free popcorn, to be used ONLY for mulching your plants.

"Please do NOT eat it here in this store, or anywhere else, because you might incur the wrath of otherwise-underemployed and bored health inspectors from Government Almighty, City of Sam Dago."

If there are continued "troubles", have the store owned place a video feed to the Sam Dago Police Department, so that they can send 10 squad cars and 2 helicopters, any time that a homeless person wonders in and eats a few pieces of popcorn. The public will demand and end to this shit soon enough.

[Juice]

The public will demand and end to this shit soon enough.

LOL

[SQRLSY One]

Solution here is this: Put up a new sign on the popcorn machine:

"This machine dispenses free popcorn, to be used ONLY for mulching your plants.

"Please do NOT eat it here in this store, or anywhere else, because you might incur the wrath of otherwise-underemployed and bored health inspectors from Government Almighty, City of Sam Dago."

If there are continued "troubles", have the store owned place a video feed to the Sam Dago Police Department, so that they can send 10 squad cars and 2 helicopters, any time that a homeless person wonders in and eats a few pieces of popcorn. The public will demand and end to this shit soon enough.

[Longtobefree]

So everybody knows only the state of California is allowed to give away free stuff.

[Rich]

serving food without a license.

So much for Halloween.

[mad.casual]

Boy and Girl Scouts, Church Communion, Picnics, Backyard Barbeques...

[SQRLSY One]

Food vending machines, fer cryin' out loud!!!

[geo1113]

From the linked article: "One of the store's owners says the inspection happened after someone complained. A customer reportedly saw another person reach into the popcorn machine barehanded."

"The inspector ordered store owners to get a license to serve food, which would require installing a three-basin sink,"

And the same guy with the same grubby paw would still reach into the popcorn machine barehanded!

[Quo Usque Tandem]

I figured the same; some douche bag "saw something and said something." It's the only reason the dip shit health inspector went to a hardware store in the first place.

[Longtobefree]

No anonymous complaints!
Some paper by a bunch of old white guys said you gets to confront your accuser.
That is so you will know whose barn to burn.
Same damn thing when accused by a machine; get the fool thing in court and start asking questions. When were you last serviced? What is the programmed minimum acceptable level of error? What percentage of revenue does your creator snag? What is the meaning of life? And then file for summary dismissal because the accuser remains mute.
Does that hardware store sell pitchforks? Torches? Perhaps a sale would be appropriate.