Madison food truck remains barred, but city says return to festival possible for next year

LANCASTER − While the city has barred Madison Bar and Grill owner Mike Thomas from selling fish sandwiches this month downtown at Main and Broad streets during Lancaster Festival events, it has left the door open for him to return next year.

In order to return, however, the city says Thomas has to address the code violations found by the Fairfield County Health Department.

But Mayor David Scheffler said, "He absolutely refused and said, 'I'm not changing what I do.'"

In addition, Scheffler said when city service safety director Paul Martin told Thomas on Monday he could return next year if he remedies the violations, Thomas "was very rude and nasty."

Thomas denied being rude to Martin.

"I swear to Jesus above I did not," he said. "If I would have really wanted to get rude and nasty I could have. I said, 'You were very vindictive and to jeopardize and try to put a small man out of business doesn't make any sense.' But I was never rude. No."

How did we get here?

On May 10, the county health department cited the Madison food truck for two critical violations and one non-critical violation, according to the department's website. The two critical violations are:

• Employees are not informed in a verifiable manner of their responsibility to report information about their health. Observed no employee health agreement on file.

• Equipment food-contact surfaces or utensils are unclean. Observed build up of grease around fryers, observed residue on soda machine. Ensure that food contact surfaces are clean to sight and touch.

The non-critical violation states:

• Facility not maintained clean. Observed that floors and walls were not maintained clean. Ensure that facilities are cleaned as often as necessary to keep them clean.

The health department also cited Thomas' food truck for numerous violations during last year's festival. Those violations included not having an accessible handwashing sink and food temperature and cleanliness issues.

MORE: City nixes Madison Bar and Grill's fish sandwiches during festival

The health department in July of last year sent the city an email expressing its concerns about the Thomas food truck.

"... the operator does not seem to want to change any of his practices, or handle the food safely for the public," the letter states, after explaining the department had sent personnel to the truck multiple times that week. In addition, it states, "We have had a tough time getting him to be in compliance over many years."

Does Thomas agree with the violations?

Thomas said the city is using the health department violations as an excuse to bar him.

"Not the reason why," Thomas said. "Because the health department did not shut me down in 2022 (after finding some violations). I finished the show. I went on to all the other shows. Plus, I was OK'd for 2023. I can't fight city hall."

Thomas is still selling his fish sandwiches from his truck parked at his 226 Madison Ave. restaurant.

"Violations are like beauty," he said. "They're in the eye of the beholder. Whatever you see is whatever you see is whatever you see. I don't even know what critical is. It's up to somebody to say, 'That's critical because he didn't wipe the scale (for weighing fish) off.'

"Well, that's not critical to me because we're moving so damn fast we don't have time. And you cook in 400-degree grease. The odds are nothing is going to contaminate anybody at 400 degrees. That's the way it is."

Thomas also said he does have a handwashing sink in the trailer, but that he sometimes turns it off when working downtown.

"We've got water," he said. "It's on. Sometimes downtown because of the tremendous amount of water pressure and not to hurt these little flimsy things (sink parts), I shut it off. Plus, down there they had a handwashing sink outside."

As for coming back downtown next year, Thomas seemed less than thrilled to do so.

"After they ridicule you," he said. "Put you down. Eliminate your earnings for a year downtown. Make you look bad in the general public's eye. Why would I go down there and grovel and go back down to make me look like I need them? I don't need them."

Thomas said his customers support him in his tiff with the city. Gypsy Joe's Ice Cream owner Joe Bellmer said he and his wife, Steph, also support Thomas.

"Truthfully, it doesn't make any sense," he said. "The county health department would be overridden by the service safety director, which my understanding is they're, obviously, two different government agencies that operate independently. We've been in it for 20 years now. This is year 20 with the festival, and we've never seen anything like this."

Blame game

Festival executive director Deb Connell said the festival is not responsible for barring the Madison food truck. But she said some people are blaming the festival anyway.

Connell said some are threatening to not attend any festival events because of the fish sandwich issue.

"I just don't think that people know that we, the Lancaster Festival, have nothing to do with scheduling, hiring or placing the food trucks that are downtown," she said. "The festival itself has nothing to do with any of the downtown food vendors."

Connell said she doesn't know how to let people know the festival is not involved in choosing food trucks.

"We keep answering people with a polite comment when they make that comment on social media," she said. "And I get it. I totally get why you would think that those are all hired by the festival because they are downtown during all the festival events. But that is not something that we manage or control at all. Other than enjoying them, because I go down there for lunch at least twice while the festival's going on and I love it."

She said the Madison fish trailer has become iconic during the festival.

"I hope in the future it all works out for everybody," Connell said. "I really truly do. But we just don't have any control over it."

Additionally, county health department environmental health director Rachel Moresea said her department never said Thomas couldn't work the festival. She said that is not the department's position.

"They're licensed to operate here in Fairfield County," Moresea said. "I know they have violations. I believe they've been given time to get those corrected. Whether they have corrected a majority of the violations or not kind of determines whether we go into the next step of enforcement. And I know they've not reached that point yet."

She said the next step would be to call Thomas into the health department office to discuss a plan of action to correct the violations.

"There's always been a number of violations at Madison's," Moresea said. "We're constantly working with him to get them corrected."

However, she said the health department works with other restaurants to correct violations.

Moresea said those with violations are usually given one to two days to correct them. The amount of time depends on how serious the violation is. For example, Moresea said if a restaurant was not keeping food at the proper temperature, the health department would return the next day.

She said it's not for her to answer whether Thomas can work the festival since he is licensed in the county.

The issue has been hot on social media and other places. Scheffler said the city knew the decision to ban Thomas would bring issues, but not to the extent it has been.

"People can make their own decisions if they have information," he said. "And, obviously, they didn't have all the information."

Hours of food trucks

Bellmer said he had an issue with Destination Downtown Lancaster executive director Amanda Everitt over the hours his truck would be open during festival week, which runs from Thursday to July 29. Bellmer wanted to be on the end spot of the corner where the food trucks are located closer to Main Street.

"Somehow it got turned around to you have to open longer than what your contract says to have your spot," Bellmer said. "And even to the point where she made a statement to where if you don't like it, get your trailer and leave. I was shocked."

Bellmer said his ice cream truck will be open during downtown festival events, albeit for longer hours than the original plan.

However, what spot vendors get isn't guaranteed, Everitt explained.

Everitt said DDL invites all the food trucks for the downtown festival events and loves them all. She said it's actually hard to get vendors to come for the two-week festival, a point Scheffler also made.

"We have had a lot of community feedback that when people drive by and they see the food truck on the end is closed, Gypsy Joe, they think all of the food trucks are closed," Everitt said. "Per their contract, they only have to be open for specific times. But we always ask and encourage folks to be open more, especially as pedestrian traffic increases throughout this time."

Everitt said food trucks that agree to stay open longer can have the end spot near Main Street. She said vendors are not guaranteed a specific spot.

"Unfortunately, Gypsy Joe's kept making the claim that they owned that spot," Everitt said. "That is city property and nobody owns these spots. In our contract, we specifically reserve the right to place them according to the size of their trailer and we move the trucks around depending on what is going to work best with the customers at the festival."

Everitt also said Bellmer said if he couldn't have the end spot he wanted his $850 deposit back and he would not participate in the festival. She said she agreed to return his money, even though that is not a normal practice.

Everitt said Bellmer then agreed to stay open during the evening and was granted the end spot.

Visit the county health department website at www.fairfieldhealth.org to see the violations against the Madison food truck.

jbarron@gannett.com

740-681-4340

Twitter: @JeffDBarron

This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Madison food truck remains barred, but city says return to festival possible for next year