DE PERE, Wis. -- Hold the mustard: De Pere, Wis., has put the kibosh on gas stations hosting outdoor brat frys, reported The Green Bay Press Gazette.
Station owners are not relishing the city Health Department's recent directive to snuff out the grills and install indoor cook-stations if they want to serve brats.
"It's a Wisconsin thing, the Friday brat fry," said Dennis Derbique, a clerk and grill master at Frank's Y Mart in De Pere. Frank's has been serving brats on the grill on Fridays for about two years, Derbique told the [image-nocss] newspaper, and other area stations have been selling them, too. The proceeds, he said, supplement funds the station owner gives to charity.
Businesses received a letter from public health sanitarian Kris Murphy and assistant fire chief Jim Stupka pointing out the use of outdoor grills for cooking has restrictions based on the state food code. "If the licensed indoor facility is not capable of preparing the same food that is served outdoors in a similar manner, then outdoor cooking operation is not permitted," the report said, citing the letter dated Dec. 18, 2006.
The letter also said the use of a grill near a fuel-dispensing device poses a fire hazard.
In order to serve outdoors, these stations would need to install indoor grills, said Alderman Mike Donovan, who brought the issue to the City Council. That, though, would cost several thousand dollars. Donavon wondered if De Pere could adopt an ordinance regarding outdoor frys, but the city attorney said state law leaves no room for more lenient local controls.
But it doesn't mean an end to charity brat frys in De Pere, the report said. Nonprofit organizations, such as the Girl Scouts, are exempt as long as they don't sell more than three times a year.
That's not fair, said Derbique, who said operators with licenses to sell food are likely to handle food more carefully than volunteers working charity booths.
Frank's Y Mart passed muster last year for city inspections, he argued, saying he believes that the outdoor grilling poses little health hazard. It's OK, he noted, for the station to serve brats inside, which it does, by heating precooked sausages in a microwave. But the store doesn't have the funds or manpower to install a full indoor grill.
Derbique said he is not sure if gas stations will fight the decision, since it likely would need to be addressed at the state level. He said he believes there are flaws in the way state officials devised the rule. "But I can see you would want to be sure they have a food license," he told the paper. "You don't exactly want a garage owner changing tires and then dropping everything to go flip burgers."
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