Sriracha Factory Under Fire For Fumes; City Sues

[MissMillie]

Source: NPR

Complaints from nearby residents about "burning eyes, irritated throats and headaches" have led the city of Irwindale, Calif., to ask a judge to order the company that makes Sriracha hot sauce to suspend production.

According to the Los Angeles Times, city attorneys "filed suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Monday, claiming that the odor was a public nuisance and asking a judge to stop production until the smell can be reduced."

NBC Los Angeles says "the complaint alleges the smell is so strong that residents have moved their 'outdoor activities indoors' and even left their homes temporarily to avoid the stench."

CBS Los Angeles adds that: "The city staff met with Huy Fong Foods officials Oct. 1 and company representatives said they would 'do everything possible to abate the odors.' But on Oct. 16, the city staff was told by a company official during another meeting that no odor problem existed, the suit says."


Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/29/241587163/sriracha-factory-under-fire-for-fumes-city-sues

---

Hope they can find a fix quickly--I love this stuff.

[House of Roberts]

1. Are they secretly manufacturing pepper spray for the Oakland PD?

[AtheistCrusader]

5. No, Oakland PD's pepper spray is bland and boring.

[sir pball]

9. As opposed to sugary and mild?

Don't get me wrong, I like sriracha enough, but it's far too sweet and not hot enough to serve as a proper hot sauce. I use it like a more interesting ketchup. 50-50 with mayo, it's one of my favorite fry dips.

But if I want hot sauce, I go to my trinity of Cholula, Tapatio, and the One Sauce to rule them all...Tabasco.

Yep, them's fighting words.

[AtheistCrusader]

10. Chipotle Tobasco is glorious.

Chipotle Cholua is good too. I could drink that stuff. (and I practically do) Regular Cholua is nice and garlicky and very nice.

I love sriracha for it's consistent delicious ubiquitousness. I can find it anywhere. But sometimes I make my own with a little habanero, to add some heat. It's really simple to make.

(I also put green tobacco on tuna melt samwiches. mmmmm)

Diversity! Always a good thing.

[AngryAmish]

15. Chocula > Chipotle Tobasco > Tobasco

However, sriracha is another category.

[carla]

20. Green tobacco

is not to be eaten. I suggest you stop putting it on your tuna melt.

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Whoops!

I knew I was doing something wrong.

[sir pball]

28. I like the chipotle, but the OG is my hot-sauce heroin.

It's the way they age the peppers. Makes it so much more than just spicy, there's a surprising depth to it that no other sauce I've found has. That and the high vinegar content makes it play much nicer with a lot of what I put hot sauce on (either rich, fatty food or crisp, bright veggies) than anything else I've found yet.

[dogknob]

13. Funny as f**k. Nice work :) n/t

[jsr]

2. Yep. It is a necessity of life.

[christx30]

16. Put it on everything

except eyes and genitalia.

[MyNameGoesHere]

3. Ok maybe I am on a Sriracha buzz

or NPR is on crack. Half way down the article I read and reread this a dozen times.:


A judge is due to consider the city's complaint on Thursday. There's a lot at stake — OC Weekly reports that Huy Fong's "655,000 square foot facility can produce 200 million bottles of the bottled crack per year."

Bottled crack?

[AtheistCrusader]

6. No, it's accurate.

[MyNameGoesHere]

7. Well that is how I consume my Sriracha

If it moves, or doesn't move, or it just is there, it gets the Sriracha treatment. So maybe bottled crack is appropriate.

[Beacool]

27. Oh, I thought that I was the only way that did that.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. MY PRECIOUS

[azurnoir]

8. It's the sauce of life

but I believe the neighbors of the factory too, mostly because of an ill fated attempt by my SO to make homemade chili paste

hopefully they can install some sort of filtration

[NCagainstMcCrony]

11. Easy solution

If I were Siracha I would take my plant to and all it's jobs and tax revenue paid to the city and relocate to a more appreciative town.

In other words. Give Irwindale the bird.

[U4ikLefty]

17. No, that's the right-winger douchebag solution.

give your mirror the bird

[NCagainstMcCrony]

18. HA!

You wouldn't know a right winger if he clubbed you.
I'm as left as they get.
But, If some douchebag city attorney wants to exercise his authoritae on the ones who pay his salary. Then he better be prepared for the result.
Let me put it in terms you can relate to.
If your neighbors there in the trailer park kept taking a dump on your front stoop.
Would you:
A. go out there and beat them all up every day.
or
B. Pack up your trailer and find a new park?

[Earth_First]

22. Trailer park insults?

Really?

[brett_jv]

23. In other words, when tons of citizens complain about a serious stench, causing burning eyes, etc ...

And the fumes are coming from some manufacturing plant in the city, the City Attorney should just leave them the hell alone cause they "pay his salary" (unlike, you know, the residents of the city ... who we all know get to live tax-free and deserve no actual representation, according to your thinking).

And you call yourself 'as left as they get'? I call Bullshit.

Because no actual liberal thinks like that. Even if they love the product, which most of us here obviously do, myself included.

However, the Green (Habanero) Yucateca rules over all hot sauces IMHO.

[Gormy Cuss]

25. That would only move the problem.

I make hot sauce at home. The volatile compounds are such that I shut off the rest of the house, open every window and door in the kitchen and run the stove vent during the whole process and it's STILL a challenge to stay in the kitchen. An industrial strength operation is probably using scrubbers inside of the plant and should have better controls on what is vented out of the plant.

[Warpy]

26. Even that doesn't work all the time

I have one recipe that starts with stir frying 10 Thai chiles in a wok. I was cooking a dinner and there was a blizzard outdoors so I decamped to the basement on the opposite side of the house where everybody was. When I came upstairs with the finished dish, everybody was coughing and mopping their eyes and noses, even the cats were coughing.

And yes, the basement had windows and I'd opened them and set up the gas ring adjacent to one. I never did that recipe again unless the weather was good enough for me to do it outdoors.

There must be some sort of air filtering setup they can use. I'd hate to be without my napalm.

[Dopers_Greed]

12. So essentially, what's being put out into the air is a "food product"

Getting free food and still complaining, the nearby residents must be Obama-voters.

[AngryAmish]

14. I will burn that town to the ground if they interrupt the supply.

The Sriracha MUST flow.

[Beacool]

19. Hey, step back from my Sriracha or else...........

[ripcord]

24. My firiend's father in law lives in the neighborhood across the street

He has lived there over 40 years and had to move out because of the odor, it is affecting his breathing. The city and the company were having talks but they broke down when Huy Fong finally said there was no odor.

[True Blue Door]

29. I love the smell of hot sauce in the morning. Smells like...plutocracy.