Denver Struggles With Exploding Hot Dog Carts: They're the Wurst

Portable food carts are an accepted fact of life in many of our major cities, and even in some small towns. For years, in the Alaska town of Talkeetna, a regular fixture on that small touristy town's main drag was the halibut taco cart. The halibut were cooked using a propane tank under the cart — until the tank exploded, breaking windows and causing damage all up and down the street. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt. But it's a halibut taco you want now in Talkeetna, you're out of luck.

Here's the thing: The Talkeetna halibut taco cart was legal. Now, back to the lower 48. Denver, Colorado, is a city that is beset with problems, not the least of which is Democrat governance. City officials piously pronounce Denver a "sanctuary" jurisdiction, and so their population of illegal aliens has grown almost continually for years now. Some of those illegal aliens, and to be fair, some in the city legally, have shown some enterprise. Denver's Lower Downtown (LoDo) area is a typically gentrified urban district, with restaurants, bars, and shopping. 

LoDo also, it seems, has a lot of unlicensed, uninspected food carts. This seems a lot like a public health crisis in the making.

At 9:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday, as people flocked to bars and clubs near Coors Field, the sidewalks of LoDo were largely unobstructed.

Then, two dinged-up minivans parked on Market Street. They were filled with rolling carts, packs of water and bins of unrefrigerated hot dogs. 

A group of Hispanic women and children, along with a handful of men who appeared to be directing the operation, gathered around and scrubbed the carts before dispersing across the tenth-of-a-mile radius. 

By 11 p.m., there were upwards of 30 carts along Blake, Market and Larimer streets, most cooking peppers, onions and bacon-wrapped hot dogs on butane-heated trays.

It's not just the cooking that's the problem, Colorado-based enterprise outlet BusinessDen writes in the story linked above. It's the trash they leave behind, and it is, yes, the health risks. Modern food-handling practices that we Americans take for granted seem a mystery to these illegal food-cart vendors.

The carts first began appearing in the neighborhood outside of LoDo’s clubs like El Patio or Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row years ago.

The food they serve is often stored unrefrigerated before being prepared. The people manning the carts don’t always wear gloves or follow other sanitary protocols. They clog already-packed streets. 

Carts are sometimes manned by children who solicit people to pay $10 a dog when clubs close at 2 a.m. After the carts pack up, operators usually don’t clean up, leaving grease stains and other trash floating around downtown.

But here's the onion: Those carts are exploding. Literally. As in, they go BOOM.

Eric Escudero, spokesman for Denver’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, said the city is most concerned with food safety and sidewalk safety. Pedestrians often veer into the street to avoid the carts, leading to near-misses with vehicles, he said.

Escudero said that the city is aware of five carts exploding — whether it be from a grease fire or issues with the fuel cylinders that they use to heat up the pseudo-grills.

One of those explosions occurred in July in the 1900 block of Market in front of El Patio, BusinessDen confirmed through video and interviews. That blast was from a grease fire, and nobody was hurt, neighbors said.

That's a real problem. 

Here's the thing and I'm going to tell you: Most, if not all, of these unlicensed food vendors are breaking the city's laws on selling prepared foods. Selling prepared foods requires any business to be in compliance with the Denver Revised Municipal Code, which requires food vendors to be licensed, and to comply with health regulations, implying that they must be inspected. These sidewalk vendors do not do this. There is a Colorado thing called the Cottage Foods Act, which means some vendors can sell some non-potentially hazardous homemade foods without a license, but that applies to things like cookies; not non-refrigerated hot dogs handled by untrained, unlicensed people with their bare hands. 

It certainly doesn't allow exploding fuel tanks and grease fires.

LoDo businesses are frustrated by the city's apparent inaction, and we can scarcely blame them for that. These sidewalk vendors are breaking the law. Their food is a health hazard. If Denver's municipal government had the good sense that nature gave to sheep, they would be sweeping these people up, confiscating their carts, and if any of the operators were found to be illegal aliens - and it's a safe bet some are — they should be turned over to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) for repatriation.

But it's been a long time since Denver, or indeed many of our major cities, showed any hint of having good sense.

Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.

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