David Tran is the founder and CEO of Huy Fong
Foods, the maker of the famously tasty Sriracha hot sauce.
Grappling for months with regulators and politicians in southern
California about the spicy scents that his factory emits, Tran
recently compared meddlesome government to that of a communist
country.
It might sound hyperbolic, but he does know a thing or two about
living under the nightmarish bureaucracy of a red utopia. NPR
explains that Tran “escaped” Socialist Republic of Vietnam and “its
many intrusions” three decades ago to start a new life in The Land
of the Free.
“Today, I feel almost the same. Even now, we live in [the] USA,
and my feeling, the government, not a big difference,” Tran
said on Monday from his factory outside of Los Angeles.
It’s not the first time he’s spoken out about the issue. He
previously
accused the local government of hating him and wanting to shut
him down and said
that the Irwindale City Council acts like a “local king.”
Last month the city council deemed the $80 million business a
“public nuisance” for giving off a peppery odor. In 2013, the city
sued Tran (despite lobbying to get him to move Hung Fong Foods
there just there in the first place) and California’s health
regulators shut down the factory for thirty days based on
specious claims.
Tran has received offers from public officials throughout the
country that want to court Hung Fong Foods. Texas, which is far
more business-friendly than California, has made the
biggest push. But, because his peppers are grown locally, Tran
said he won’t move the current operation. He did indicate that he
may open another factory elsewhere to meet the growing demand for
the sauce.
Check out Reason TV’s coverage of this saucy situation
here:
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