By Brett Logiurato, Business Insider
Like many Texans and Americans, Jason Villalba loves Sriracha.
Jason Villalba want the company to move its operations from California to the Lone Star State, in light of what they say are California’s crushing regulations, high taxation, and burdensome cost of living. Photo from ASSOCIATED PRESS.
Villalba, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, puts it on, or in, just about anything. Eggs. Pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup. Even lasagna.
“I’ve been a huge fan for the last decade,” Villalba told Business Insider in an interview.
But lately, Villalba and other Texas Republicans have taken a different interest in Sriracha. They want the company to move its operations from California to the Lone Star State, in light of what they say are California’s crushing regulations, high taxation, and burdensome cost of living.
The hot sauce has become a major topic of conversation in both Texas — where the state’s Republicans are looking to score another business victory over California Democrats — and in California, where its Republicans are using the opportunity to slam the state’s regulations and high taxation.
It even reached up to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who tweeted last week the company would be “welcome with open arms and eager taste buds.” In California, Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari tweeted it was time to “stand with Sriracha.”
“I think we’re at a tipping point,” Villalba said. “When you start to overburden the creators of jobs, ultimately the creators of jobs have to consider alternatives.”
On May 12, Villalba will lead a delegation from Texas to California to tour the Sriracha facility in Irwindale and meet with David Tran, the CEO of Huy Fong Foods, Inc. Joining Villalba in the delegation are Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples and one of the top aides to Texas Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott.
Together, they will look to take advantage of a recent dispute between Huy Fong and the Irwindale City Council, using it as their main argument in an attempt to convince Tran to bring Sriracha to Texas.
Villalba originally took an interest in the Sriracha possibility in January, when he wrote a letter to Tran inviting him to move operations to Texas. That came about a month after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Huy Fong Foods needed to halt any production that could cause chili odors. The city of Irwindale sued the company in October, citing complaints from residents who claimed the odor from production was a public hazard.
Two weeks ago, the Irwindale City Council voted unanimously to declare the smell of the hot sauce a public nuisance, despite promises from the company that they would work to mitigate the smell by June.
In reaching out to Villalba to invite him to tour the facility, Tran told him he fears the city won’t accept any solution. (Huy Fong didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.) Villalba also said more than 60% of the complaints about the smell have come from only a handful of households.
“I’ll bet they never had any anticipation in one-thousand years that a city council could shut them down during the most important time of their processing merely because a handful of individuals from the community claim they had an itchy nose,” Villalba said.
Because of its popularity, the Sriracha situation has provided Villalba and other Texas Republicans with a media-friendly story for what they say is a larger trend — businesses are leaving places like California and coming to Texas. Republican Gov. Rick Perry has been actively poaching businesses from all over the United States, but some of the most noteworthy have come from California.
Read the full article by Brett Logiurato from Business Insider.
