On the Harvest Healthcoming Department's festival permit cross-pollination.

New Albanian Brewing Company began staging its Fringe Fest simultaneously with Harvest Homecoming in 2008, before Bank Street Brewhouse even opened for business.

When the new brewpub business commenced in 2009, the kitchen was accredited by the Floyd County Health Department in customary fashion. Apart from the requisite inspections and a chat this year about the unexpected mobility of garage doors, we have had little to do with each other, which in regulatory terms is a pleasant, workable arrangement for both parties.

First with Chef Josh Lehman, and now with Chef Matt Weirich, Bank Street Brewhouse has cooked a special fest menu outdoors during three previous Fringe Fests, and to my knowledge, we haven’t had a Temporary Food Service Permit during any of those times.

This year on Thursday night, the Floyd County Health Department’s man on the street stopped by Fringe Fest and made inquiries of Bank Street Brewhouse’s kitchen staff. He left no firm instructions and made no procedural judgments, but returned on Friday afternoon at 3:40 p.m., announcing that we must have a Temporary Food Service Permit to prepare our Fringe Fest menu outdoors.

I pointed to what I imagined might be obvious: Bank Street Brewhouse is not a temporary kitchen, and we are located outside the downtown street grid which the Board of Works inexplicably allows Harvest Homecoming to control each October via a regime bearing all the subtlety of martial law.

The inspector bristled: The required temporary cooking permit applies to each and every instance of outdoor food preparation taking place during any of a non-Leap Year’s 365 days. Even if we’d been missed enforcement before, there were no exceptions. To me, the worst case scenario was that we’d simply retreat indoors to the usual kitchen and continue cooking, but matters of principle have a way of motivating me – and Fringe Fest is the kitchen staff’s chance to see the public and be seen.

After first stating that it would be impossible for us to obtain this permit before closing at 4:00 p.m. from the agency’s Bono Road office, four blocks away, he relented and phoned ahead. My people made it there in plenty of time, and the application was duly processed. We paid $20 per day for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Imagine my surprise when the document brought back for posting looked like this.

The Harvest Homecoming name is right there, along with a (coincidental?) permit number with an HH prefix. These and the garish orange colored paper would seem to indicate that it’s an official Harvest Homecoming document, or rather, a Harvest Healthcoming Department's official document.

But: Isn’t it a logical impossibility for Bank Street Brewhouse to be confused for a Harvest Homecoming booth? We did not have to pay (not yet) the governing committee its $300 for access to our own building, and if we did not pay a non-governmental agency for access to our own building through city-owned property, how on earth can we be a Harvest Homecoming booth?

By the time the permit came back, the inspector had long since disappeared into the elephant ear protection zone, but before leaving, he made several observations to me. Significantly, not one of them had anything to do with our staff’s food preparation conditions, which were immaculate.

First, he stated yet again that irrespective of it being Harvest Homecoming time, any instance of temporary outdoor cooking year-round merits a daily $20 permit; second, that the fee for this temporary permit must be levied so that employees like him can be paid to conduct temporary permit inspections; and third, that he had come to Bank Street Brewhouse on Friday because of a “complaint.”

My reaction:

First point: It took me a while, but yes, I found it – not at the Health Department web site, but at the Harvest Homecoming web site, suggesting that for those other 361 days, prospective applicants must pretend they’re Harvest Homecoming booths to find the paperwork. Must they post HH-numbered permits on July 7 or April 23?

Second point: $60 for ten minutes’ work seems like a stretch, but map-reading skills are forever at a premium.

Third point: Really? While it required a fairly well informed person like me half the day to piece together these scattered bits of relevant information, I’m to accept that John Q. Public walks past our establishment, smells duck fat frites, and does a double take: “Gladys, they don’t have a permit – call the hot line, now!”

C’mon, I’d sooner accept the existence of the Great Pumpkin than an ordinary person (excepting a vengeful Professor Erika, perhaps) knowing enough about esoteric regulations to fill this role.

It’s much more likely that the complainant, if any, is someone with ties to Harvest Homecoming itself. After all, irrespective of the statutory justification for the existence of temporary cooking permits, the health department’s own web site doesn’t include mention of the temporary permit fee on its fee schedule, or the application form for the permit.

In fact, as noted, the only truly coherent explanation of the permit’s existence can be found within the Harvest Homecoming booth application packet, including an explanatory letter from the health department, an application and the fee schedule of $20 per day.

So, my questions: Must a kitchen otherwise accredited year-round by the Health Department purchase daily temporary cooking permits just barely described on the Health Department’s own propaganda organ, and if so, why are these supposedly year-round permits lumped together on a Harvest Homecoming-branded, date-specific sheet of paper?

By the way, given that Sunday’s edition of Harvest Homecoming was canceled and no one cooked, do we all get refunds?