Laws make it harder to eat in Louisiana

Houston Chronicle:

In the heat of a Louisiana afternoon, the aroma of Fidel Sanchez's carne asada spreads and pools across the parking lot of the suburban home improvement store. Vaporous fingers of odor — spicy, seductive — tickle the noses of the hard-hatted, work-booted day laborers crouching on a curb in hope of landing a job.

"La Sabrosita" — "The Little Tasty One" — touts a painted slogan atop the Taqueria Sanchez, a white aluminum van through whose windows passes a steady stream of tacos, tortas, gorditas, flautas and burritos. Customers, almost all of them Hispanic, cluster with their lunch in the food van's skimpy shade.

Common in Houston and other Texas cities, such scenes are exotic in the greater New Orleans area where, after Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of Latinos rushed to fill jobs left vacant by fleeing locals. Within weeks of the storm, Sanchez and other Houston-based mobile restaurateurs followed.

Business has been good for Sanchez and his partner, Carmela Diaz, who operate four vans in New Orleans and Metairie, the governmental seat of suburban Jefferson Parish.

But now, parish officials have decreed that taco trucks must leave key thoroughfares, provide permanent restrooms and obtain new permits if they linger in any location more than 30 minutes.

The law, which became effective June 30, is the latest in a series that has sharply restricted itinerant food vendors across the nation. In St. Paul, Minn., vendors are battling a state law that limits the length of time they may sell from a fixed location. In Salinas, Calif., officials will vote this month on a proposed ordinance that would ban mobile vendors from city streets.

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As Hispanic advocates and others questioned motives behind the Jefferson Parish measure, zoning officials last week sent letters explaining the law and its penalties to property owners renting space to mobile food vendors.

At least 32 businesses fall under the law's purview, said Louis Savoye, the parish's chief of inspection and code enforcement, and four of them, including Taqueria Sanchez, have been found in violation.

In neighboring New Orleans, City Councilman Oliver Thomas sparked a firestorm when he suggested that the Crescent City follow Jefferson Parish's lead. "How are we helping our restaurants that are trying to recover by having more food trucks from Texas open up?" he asked. "How do tacos help gumbo?"

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There you see the real reason for the regulations. If the mobile rigs were selling gumbo made by locals it is likely that there would be little objection. Louisiana has always had a problem with provincialism. It has chased off a lot of good people and good businesses by protecting locals from competition. This has made things more expensive and has awarded poorer quality. In Louisiana the guy with the best product at the best price does not always get the business. This is one reason why Houston has outstripped New Orleans. While I enjoy Cajun food, these guys are crazy to chase off Mexican food from Houston. They should be inviting them in and hoping they will open restaurants.

BTW, one of my favorite places to eat on Market Square in downtown Houston is a Cajun restaurant called Treebeard's.