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| Sriracha will stay in Irwindale, for now. Image: Ted Eytan / Flickr |
The ever-popular Sriracha sauce has been making headlines for
a few months now—and not because of its well-known kick-in-the-mouth spiciness.
The Sriracha plant, located in Irwindale, California, has local residents
complaining about offensive odors.
Plant owner and hot sauce maker David Tran says he doesn’t
plan on relocating the plant despite the fact that it has temporarily been
declared a public nuisance by Irwindale’s city leaders. The City Council will
vote on Wednesday to finalize the “public nuisance” declaration unless the vote
is delayed. Tran says he thinks he can resolve the issue by June 1st,
which may be enough to delay the vote for a few weeks.
Currently, the recommendation given to Tran is that he
relocate the odoriferous Sriracha plant and its jobs elsewhere. If the public nuisance
declaration stands, the plant will have to abide by an order to cease most
operations. Irwindale’s population was 1,422, according to the 2010 census.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the lawsuit is that in
2010, the city of Irwindale offered Huy Fong Foods a low-interest loan to
relocate its factory to Irwindale. After accepting the deal, the Sriracha plant
was built—a $40 million operation designed to bring in about $300 million
annually in sales. Huy Fong also paid the city of Irwindale $250,000 per year
as part of the deal. However, shortly after the loan was repaid and the
quarter-million in contributions to the city stopped, the lawsuits began coming
in. As it turns out, the city's not as happy hosting the Sriracha plant as they'd hoped.
In November 2013, a court order forced Huy Fong Foods to
cease any operations that might be causing the odor issues. According
to City Attorney Fred Galante, Irwindale’s collective goal is to find a way
to resolve the issues at hand, not force the Sriracha plant to stop production
altogether.
“We’re going to try to keep having a conversation with Huy
Fong and working out some collaborative ways to test and make sure the odor
problems are addressed,” he said.
If that’s true, then City Council members may indeed decide
to delay the final public nuisance vote, giving Tran a chance resolve the
issues before forcing a full stop.
Of course, Tran has no shortage of suitors that are more
than willing to assist in a relocation of the lucrative Sriracha plant. Though
Tran says he’s not currently planning to relocate, though, he did tell two
Texas lawmakers that he would be open to expanding the business in additional
locations.
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