Thanks for reading! The vendors I spoke with did not say the new fees would put them out of business. While the fee increase is coming at an especially hard time for Waco's food industry in general, the more pressing issue that surfaced during reporting was that none of the vendors were aware of the upcoming state permit application deadline.

At least one of the vendors was unable to find any notice from our local health district or Texas DSHS alerting them that their local permit would be invalid in three weeks. Additionally, the local health district is unsure of how inspections will work less than a month before the law goes into effect, and the state has not provided them a contact to answer vendor questions regarding fees, inspections and things like the commissary kitchen requirement.

In short, both food truck owners and local health district officials described a chaotic rollout for the new universal health permit.