Keep on (Pupusa) Trucking
As thunderstorms ripped through Prince George’s County last week, WAMU’s David Furst and I stood there in the downpour and talked about the continued crack down on pupusa truck vendors in the area. The trucks that defy the law against street vending continue to rack up $500 tickets; others have moved their trucks to an area around the West Hyattsville Metro station, where sympathetic police apparently don’t get hard-ons by issuing tickets to Salvadoran street vendors.
You can hear the latest on the Prince George’s County embarrassment—as well as recommendations on other street fare to sample in the area—by listening to Metro Connection today at 1 p.m. That’s 88.5 on your FM dial.




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June 20th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Great story on WAMU today. Apparently, Frontera #1, the pupusa cart you visited on-air, makes some really yummy-sounding food. I wondered: Is food safety an issue in the PG Co. street food ban, or is is completely motivated by local competitiveness and quality-of-life issues? I know you can get food poisoning just as easily inside a theoretically hygienic restaurant that has passed health inspections, but laws are in place that impose specific food safety handling regulations on foodservice establishments. I know there are far too few health inspectors (at least in DC) so that safe-handling regulation enforcement can far from comprehensive, but are there any food safety regulations or inspections for street food operations (AKA pupusa cards, etc.)? If so, do they differ in various jurisdictions?