By Baylee Parsons, The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — “Shut it down now.”
These are the words Hillbilly Hibachi owner Adam Brown heard being yelled into his food trailer by an unexpected visitor as he was set up in Westmoreland last fall.
“We were crazy busy, had been selling for an hour or more, and all of this sudden, somebody sticks their head in the side of our trailer and starts screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Shut it down now,’” Brown recalled. “He didn’t identify himself, didn’t say who he was.”
The visitor, who later identified himself as an assistant state fire marshal, told Brown he would need to stop conducting business for the day because the trailer did not contain a full fire suppression system, typically used in restaurants.
The West Virginia State Fire Marshal Office’s recent addition of the full fire suppression system to its list of requirements for mobile food vendors — along with a growing list of taxes, license and regulations from individual cities — has caused several food truck owners to stop or halt business in West Virginia in the past year.
