Food Cart

It's late in the afternoon - near closing time for Rami's Luncheonette, a food cart on 40th and Locust Streets - and Sami Dakko is waxing philosophical. "When the rain comes," the owner says, peering at the empty sidewalk, "it comes for everybody. Dakko's is the consummate Ellis Island tale. Though a successful real estate developer in his native Lebanon, Dakko hungered for the promise of American shores, bringing his family across the pond to a relative's place in Havertown in 1985.

Craig LaBan: Mike Klein and I popped by this adorable little cart, Spot, to try their house-ground burgers, and cheesesteaks. They butcher the meat themselves from a big top round, pretty impressive for a place that's 6 feet long. They've got the system down pat, with someone taking orders beneath the shade of a red awning on the yellow cart, with a grill-master inside sizzling away at warp speed. You know they've got ambitions with ingredients like "mire-poix" (for the meatloaf) and an "Umami" signature burger (excellent, with pickled daikon, mushrooms, and gochujang)

You might call it the hot-dog wars. A proposal that would allow the first food vendor in recent memory to park a cart outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown has Main Street merchants up in arms. For 15 years, Kuem Lee has operated his P&W Discount Store on West Main Street, across the street from the courthouse. Along with lottery tickets, cell phones and other merchandise, Lee sells hot dogs. Hot dogs also are among the menu items that would be offered by Gary Greco of Eagleville, who wants to operate the portable food cart.

There was an Alcatrazlike quality to it, the way it all went down Wednesday in Row 24 of US Airways Flight 1419, as the tiny food cart on my jammed Philadelphia-to-Los Angeles flight rolled up. The snack cart, we had been warned by a flight attendant over the public-address system, might run out of food. This was largely by design, she explained, not stocking enough food for everyone on board. Oh, and what was on the menu - an Italian club wrap, a chicken salad, a fruit-and-cheese offering, snack boxes - would have to be purchased.

NOT EQUIPPED FOR DRIVE-IN BUSINESS, Joey Campo waits for a workman to lower his food cart after it was struck by a car at 16th and Race Streets. The car had been involved in a multi-vehicle collision. Joey and his brother Sal were trapped in the cart briefly.

Mohinder Singh testified that he still had breathing problems because his nose was crushed by blows from an iron rod and baseball bats. He said pain still radiated from his forehead and his vision in one eye remained blurred. It has been two years since Singh, 43, and his partner, Makhan Singh, 30, Center City vendors, were beaten in May 1988, allegedly by competing vendors after they set up their food cart between established vendors in front of Pennsylvania Hospital. The case against the defendants was taken under advisement yesterday by Common Pleas Court Judge Russell M. Nigro, who said he would announce his decision on June 29. The Singhs testified this week in the aggravated assault and conspiracy trial of three defendants - James Scarduzio, John Iannarone and Francis C. Brocco.

One vendor was forced to remove her food cart and a second cart was towed away yesterday when the operators challenged a ban on food vending on the 17th Street side of One Liberty Place. The vendors received warning citations from representatives of the city Department of Licenses and Inspections after parking their carts on the sidewalk near 17th and Ludlow Streets and 17th and Market Streets. City officials said that most of the 17th Street side of One Liberty Place has been set aside as a passenger drop-off area and that the rest was reserved for truck loading.

On the surface, running a flea market may seem one of the simplest forms of free enterprise. Just find yourself a big, empty parking lot, gather several dozen vendors with watches, hair gizmos and hot dogs for sale, and you're in business. But a quartet of New Jersey entrepreneurs are learning firsthand that there is more to it than that. The lesson has come primarily courtesy of the Bucks County Health Department. When he and his three partners in Bargains Inc. opened a weekly flea market at Bensalem's Philadelphia Park in June, John Spadavecchia said, they were not looking for trouble.

ABC, ethics of journalism and the public trust Claude Lewis' column in support of Food Lion's suit against ABC's Prime Time Live ("Outright lying to get the story is just plain wrong," Feb. 3) is very disturbing. Mr. Lewis states that Prime Time Live was wrong to obtain employment with Food Lion for its reporters. He contrasts this with things that he himself has done to get a story: wearing a doctor's coat and stethoscope in a hospital; sending a reporter into a hospital dressed as a nurse, and infiltrating a meeting from which the press was barred by paying a hotel waiter to let him wheel in the food cart.

Total honesty isn't required in investigative journalism. Small deceptions are acceptable, but outright lying and the presentation of false documents go much too far. This is the line ABC and Prime Time Live crossed to obtain a story about questionable food-preparation and sales practices by employees of Food Lion. And now, a jury has rightly awarded the supermarket chain $5.5 million in damages. Some TV journalists argue that what ABC's producers did was necessary to help protect the public.

Craig LaBan: Mike Klein and I popped by this adorable little cart, Spot, to try their house-ground burgers, and cheesesteaks. They butcher the meat themselves from a big top round, pretty impressive for a place that's 6 feet long. They've got the system down pat, with someone taking orders beneath the shade of a red awning on the yellow cart, with a grill-master inside sizzling away at warp speed. You know they've got ambitions with ingredients like "mire-poix" (for the meatloaf) and an "Umami" signature burger (excellent, with pickled daikon, mushrooms, and gochujang)

There was an Alcatrazlike quality to it, the way it all went down Wednesday in Row 24 of US Airways Flight 1419, as the tiny food cart on my jammed Philadelphia-to-Los Angeles flight rolled up. The snack cart, we had been warned by a flight attendant over the public-address system, might run out of food. This was largely by design, she explained, not stocking enough food for everyone on board. Oh, and what was on the menu - an Italian club wrap, a chicken salad, a fruit-and-cheese offering, snack boxes - would have to be purchased.

It's late in the afternoon - near closing time for Rami's Luncheonette, a food cart on 40th and Locust Streets - and Sami Dakko is waxing philosophical. "When the rain comes," the owner says, peering at the empty sidewalk, "it comes for everybody. Dakko's is the consummate Ellis Island tale. Though a successful real estate developer in his native Lebanon, Dakko hungered for the promise of American shores, bringing his family across the pond to a relative's place in Havertown in 1985.

Philadelphia may have the most lax restaurant inspection rate among the nation's largest cities, but its inspection of food carts is even worse. That's because the city rarely examines the 1,465 or so food trucks once they are on the street. The city asks each owner, when licensed, to drive his cart to the Health Department for inspection. Inspectors make sure the carts are clean and capable of keeping food at the proper temperatures. But the carts are never examined again unless inspectors find a problem at the outset or someone complains.

The battle against child obesity seems to be all over the news. Children are fat, and parents are desperate: Extreme measures such as gastric-bypass surgery, tummy tucks and fat farms are becoming more prevalent. Schools are hard-pressed to slim their kids down, and talk of adding extra gym classes, getting rid of snack machines, and implementing more-nutritious school lunches is buzzing. I even heard the ridiculous suggestion that physical-education classes be outlawed, because most kids just stand around in gym, taking fatal blows to their self-esteem while the athletic kids make fun of them.

You might call it the hot-dog wars. A proposal that would allow the first food vendor in recent memory to park a cart outside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown has Main Street merchants up in arms. For 15 years, Kuem Lee has operated his P&W Discount Store on West Main Street, across the street from the courthouse. Along with lottery tickets, cell phones and other merchandise, Lee sells hot dogs. Hot dogs also are among the menu items that would be offered by Gary Greco of Eagleville, who wants to operate the portable food cart.

ABC, ethics of journalism and the public trust Claude Lewis' column in support of Food Lion's suit against ABC's Prime Time Live ("Outright lying to get the story is just plain wrong," Feb. 3) is very disturbing. Mr. Lewis states that Prime Time Live was wrong to obtain employment with Food Lion for its reporters. He contrasts this with things that he himself has done to get a story: wearing a doctor's coat and stethoscope in a hospital; sending a reporter into a hospital dressed as a nurse, and infiltrating a meeting from which the press was barred by paying a hotel waiter to let him wheel in the food cart.

Total honesty isn't required in investigative journalism. Small deceptions are acceptable, but outright lying and the presentation of false documents go much too far. This is the line ABC and Prime Time Live crossed to obtain a story about questionable food-preparation and sales practices by employees of Food Lion. And now, a jury has rightly awarded the supermarket chain $5.5 million in damages. Some TV journalists argue that what ABC's producers did was necessary to help protect the public.

Penn's countdown to tipoff continues: 11:45 a.m. yesterday: Bob Levy is talking from his car phone. Levy, a Penn trustee and backer of anything involving Penn athletics, is gearing up for his alma mater's first-round NCAA Tournament game against Massachusetts tomorrow in Syracuse, N.Y. (Channel 10, 12:30 p.m.). "It's certainly nice to be playing," Levy says. "It's great to come as far as we have in so short a time. It's a great tribute to the program and to (coach) Fran Dunphy.

On the surface, running a flea market may seem one of the simplest forms of free enterprise. Just find yourself a big, empty parking lot, gather several dozen vendors with watches, hair gizmos and hot dogs for sale, and you're in business. But a quartet of New Jersey entrepreneurs are learning firsthand that there is more to it than that. The lesson has come primarily courtesy of the Bucks County Health Department. When he and his three partners in Bargains Inc. opened a weekly flea market at Bensalem's Philadelphia Park in June, John Spadavecchia said, they were not looking for trouble.