Free snacks can make dull errands like waiting at the car dealership or shopping for tools a little brighter and more bearable. Little cups of coffee or baggies of popcorn not only provide sustenance during these long, arduous tasks, but also add a little bit of fun and flair to routine family outings. So why, you ask, would somebody want to take that away?
It turns out that somebody is afraid of a few germs.
The San Diego Union-Tribune recently covered a story about an anonymous onlooker at Meanley & Son hardware store who reported the business’ bright red vintage popcorn machine to the health department. Though the store’s employees made the popcorn, customers were able to serve themselves using a scooper. According to the anon tattletale, they saw customers unobtrusively stick their whole, bare fist in the machine to grab corn by the handful.
Bob Meanley, owner of the store, has handed out 30-40 bags of free popcorn every day for 25 years until health inspectors kindly asked him to either install a three-basin sink and comply with regular inspections like any other restaurant, or stop popping kernels for good. Sadly, Meanley chose the latter and duly retired the machine that popped nothing but pure fun.
The reasoning for the crackdown, as the Tribune points out, is that there is a higher risk of food-borne illness with unregulated culinary practices.
Unhandled
This statement might be true of restaurants who dish up much larger quantities of food, but is scooping up some popcorn at a hardware store any more unsanitary than dipping your hands in the packages of snacks at work? Or grabbing a handful of peanuts at a bar?
Apparently, neither Meanley nor other popcorn-wielding hardware store business owners that the Tribune interviewed for the story had received customer complaints of food poisoning. In fact, more customers seem to be regretting the machine’s departure than not, viewing it as a symbol of nostalgia and good ol’ fashioned cheer.
One Yelp reviewer stated, “Right inside the smell of fresh popped popcorn greets you, and it is super tasty, help yourself to a bag.”
Cathy Jones, head cashier at Meanley & Son, stated, “People are very upset. Even if they didn’t eat the popcorn, they appreciated the aroma.”
Others on Twitter were equally upset about the incident:
The Tribune also uncovered evidence regarding contradictions in the health department’s popcorn regulations. When Rough Draft, a California-based brewery, opened in 2012, owner Jeff Silver was able to obtain casual, verbal clearance from the health department to serve up the salty snack without basins or regular check-ins.
Speaking to the Tribune, Silver said, “I called the health department and said, ‘Hey, we’d like to serve popcorn but we don’t have a kitchen'...they said, ‘We don’t really consider popcorn food, so you’re fine.’”
The health department has also turned a blind eye to libraries in the area that serve up popcorn during movie nights, which suggests maybe they’re not entirely against the long-time tradition until someone calls in to complain.