FROM THE FIELD
January 2007
Fiddling While the Bay Area Burns

Another episode of regulatory calamity is upon us. And once again, the big chains are fiddling while the flames spread.

Here’s the short version: Awhile back, California’s Bay Area Air Quality Management District proposed a regulation requiring a whole new category of high-efficiency grease filtration for underfired charbroilers. Mind you, these are not the common “high efficiency” filters rated under the old standards. They’re a special category of filters only recently defined, designed mainly for high-emissions applications. 

That part of the reg might have been fine. But then the proposal was expanded to require the same high-tech filtration for all Type I hoods that don’t already have fixed extractors or removable cartridge filters, regardless of what cooking equipment’s under them. Way overkill, and way too expensive for the benefit.

In mid-October, the alarm bell sounded at the National Restaurant Association’s Multiunit Architects, Engineers & Construction Officers autumn meeting. Don Fisher, of Fisher-Nickel Inc., briefed the group on the implications of the proposal, outlining its flaws and costs. He warned the group that the BAAQMD would be holding town hall type meetings for public comment on Nov. 14-15 at multiple locations in the Bay Area. He urged MAECO attendees to file written comments and, most importantly, to make sure that their organizations were represented in person at the meetings. (An empty room implies acceptance, or at least a lack of resistance.)

How many chains showed up to defend their interests? Zero

In the Oct. 31 edition of our FER Fortnightly e-newsletter, we sounded the same alarm. We urged operators to mobilize, for fear of another debacle like the Int’l. Code Council’s decision to require hood interlocks on all cooking equipment.

Fisher rallied the troops, sent emails and so on. Ventilation manufacturers scrambled and showed up. The NRA put out the word, too, and posted all kinds of reference information on its Web site.

So how many operators showed up among the people representing industry’s interest? The NRA was there, as a single entity. But as for troops-on-the-ground representation, only two operators showed up—and they were independents. Not a single chain.

Is this sounding like a scene from the “Bad News Bears” to you? Not a single chain doing business in the Bay Area thought enough to send someone to safeguard its interests? Where were the California-based chains? They could have attended for the cost of parking.

Back in early 2004, at our Multiunit Foodservice Equipment Symposium, a closing panel discussion group said regulatory pressure would be the single biggest problem for the foreseeable future.

And yet when the crunch comes, the chains with the most at stake are nowhere to be found. We get what we deserve. The industry representatives who attended the meetings fought it well enough to put it on hold for the moment. But it’s not dead.

To find out more about why it’s a bad regulation, and what you can do about it, go to the Web pages below. And then put the fiddle down and get involved.

Talking points: www.restaurant.org/pdfs/healthsafety/200610_baaqmd_talkingpoints.doc

Notice of public workshop: www.restaurant.org/pdfs/healthsafety/200610_baaqmd_publicnotice.pdf

Proposed regulations: www.restaurant.org/pdfs/healthsafety/200610_baaqmd_regs.pdf

Rule summary: www.restaurant.org/pdfs/healthsafety/200610_baaqmd_rulesummary.pdf

Workshop report: www.restaurant.org/pdfs/healthsafety/200610_baaqmd_wkshopreport.pdf

Brian Ward
Chief Editor