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Texas Law Targeting Barbecue Restaurants Attracts Serious Backlash
In order to satisfy a few residents who have complained about the smoke emanating from certain barbecue restaurants in the city, Austin city council members recently considered implementing new regulations that could put restaurants out of business regardless of whether any complaints were lodged against them. Reports focus on the prevalence of food trucks that billow smoke near residential areas as a primary concern; however, the new rules as written would apply to all restaurants located within 100 feet of a residence.
Though the proposal received an initial thumbs up from city leaders, the council has yet to receive a final version of the ordinance on which they can vote. In the interim, barbecue masters and aficionados alike are lamenting the toll such a restriction could take on the city’s restauranteurs.
KXAN reported that the remedies suggested include forcing business owners to obtain “expensive smoke scrubbers” or switch their wood-burning pits to gas-operated cookers.
Greater Austin Restaurant Association board member Hoover Alexander shared his concern that “if we have an ordinance that paints all of us into one group of folk that may not be good neighbors,” he can foresee being “penalized without considerations of other solutions.”
Local pit master Kent Black shared Alexander’s concerns, urging the city council to “make it a little more specifically aimed at where the problem is and hopefully not burden all of the other restaurants where it’s not a problem.”
For those who frequent the eclectic city’s many barbecue restaurants, a major concern seems to be with preserving the flavor they have come to expect.
“Maybe you don’t understand what BBQ is,” one reader wrote in response to a Washington Weekly News article, “IT’S SMOKE!!!!!!”
Share this article on Facebook if you think this proposed ordinance goes too far to regulate private businesses.
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Equipping You With The Truth
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/texas-law-targeting-barbecue-restaurants-attracts-serious-backlash/
That isn’t a Texas “law” it would be a Austin city limits ordinance.