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Rolling Restaurants: Food Trucks Required to Display Letter Grades

The letter grades seen in restaurant windows will now be required for food trucks in San Diego County.

Eat at all the best food trucks at the

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Food truck operators will be required to display the same health inspection letter grades as restaurants under an ordinance passed unanimously Wednesday by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.

This year's free has featured different food trucks each week (, but the ordinance likely won't have time to take affect in time to see the decals this summer.

The county inspects around 1,100 mobile food operations in the region, of which 550 sell to the public, but the operators were not previously required to display the results, Supervisor Ron Roberts said. Restaurants generally display their blue letter grade on a placard in a front window. Under the ordinance, the food trucks will receive decals instead of cards so the grades can’t be transferred among vehicles.

County Department of Environmental Health officials plan to work with the region’s 18 cities to establish uniform enforcement.

Staff will introduce fee adjustments related to implementing the new law in September. According to county documents, the costs for inspection could increase by as much as 14 percent, from around $450 to $500.

“The world is changing,” Roberts said. “At one time we had drive-in restaurants, now we have drive-around restaurants.”

The plan was supported by the San Diego County Restaurant Association and food truck owners, according to Roberts.

According to the county, of the 550 mobile establishments that sell to the public, around 300 are limited in scope, selling hot dogs and coffee. The rest are “hot food trucks,” “gourmet food trucks” and catering vehicles with complex menus and multiple ingredients.

Roberts said he hopes the county will begin putting the results of food truck safety inspections online, at the same website where the county shows reports on restaurants—eatsafesandiego.org.

The supervisors, as part of their consent agenda, also approved an update of county regulations of body art businesses—including tattoo shops and body piercing establishments—to bring them into line with new state law.

This week's food trucks at the Summer Concert:

  • Chop Sooey
  • Groogy's
  • Rubio's
  • Sweet Treats

-City News Service contributed to this report

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Just a short thought to get the word out quickly about anything in your neighborhood.
Share something with your neighbors. Write a new post... What's up? Make an announcement, speak your mind, or sell something
Steven Bartholow (Editor) May 16, 2013 at 03:53 pm
Thanks for posting this. I also added this to our events list. In the future I suggest posting anRead More announcement and event for maximum exposure- http://santee.patch.com/posts/event/new Good luck with the fundraiser!
RainWaterSystems May 17, 2013 at 10:58 am
That's awesome! We wish you success and recovery. We suggest two books; A Purpose Driven Life byRead More Rick Warren and Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill. I hope to be in a position to hire a salesman this fall.
Steven Bartholow (Editor) May 16, 2013 at 10:34 am
Anyone else recommend a Santee family owned business that's outside the city?
Retha Knight May 17, 2013 at 11:05 pm
Where do you type what you want to view, like "Quail Brush"?
Steven Bartholow (Editor) May 17, 2013 at 10:01 am
No drop down menus, just click the header links for more options. For story categories click newsRead More and look on the left hand column. I know the redesign will take a bit to get used to, but I really think it will be a better site for community engagement, and easier to use. Feel free to post your feedback to the redesign on the boards, I'll check it out and respond, but you might also send your feedback straight to Patch headquarters with this form- http://feedback.aol.com/rs/rs.php?sid=patch Engineers will be furiously tweeking the new site based on your suggestions.
Retha Knight May 17, 2013 at 06:40 am
The new format from my iPad is very boring. Where are the drop down menus?
Mike Walker April 23, 2013 at 01:20 pm
this is why the battlefield has changed temporarily from the political arena to the Energy Arena.Read More Co Gen Tricks and the usual suspects are making their big money bet on two inevitable facts that will force the hand of the CPUC and CEC to place a new gas power plant somewhere in the area. 1) the Electric Vehicle Mandate. 2) voltage support (power factor) needed by the industrial wind and solar farms in the desert. There is more to what meets the eye with the aggressive push by the usual suspects to cover our open spaces in the East County with these poorly sited RE projects. More wind and solar farms means more gas power plants. There is only one way to fight the destruction of our open spaces, and that is with roof top solar, conservation, energy efficiency and community owned energy districts. The fisrt thing that needs to be done is the City of Santee exempt residential scale PV installs from needing a building permit. Australia, Germany and the State of Vermont do not require a Building Permit to install PV.
Retha Knight April 23, 2013 at 03:48 am
Well said Stephen! Knowledge is TRULY power! The fight is not over! Cogentrix is just onceRead More again playing their wait, wait, wait game in the public eye and playing their lobbying game behind closed doors.
just my opinion April 22, 2013 at 01:04 am
Stephen, well said!!!!!