A "potentially discriminatory" city code is now being revisited due to a recent backlash of complaints after a Vietnamese restaurant in Portland, Oregon was closed.
As reported by Emi Tuyetnhi Tran of NBC News, the pho restaurant received "anonymous odor complaints" that were filed to the city officials. The restaurant, Pho Gabo, closed in early February after facing the threat of a hefty fine. Since then, though, city officials "halted all subsequent investigations of odor code violations related to food establishments in order to re-examine the policy."
The restaurant's owner, Eddie Dong, told NBC News that the initial complaints "caught him off guard" since he had been operating the restaurant for over five years. He also operates two other Pho Gabo locations nearby. Tran notes that there is a "sole complainer," who reportedly lives near the restaurant, but this person hasn't been identified as of yet. “They complained to the city and the city came down," Dong said. "They say ‘odor,’ but it’s just food, grilling meat.”
The Portland odor code states "continuous, frequent, or repetitive odors may not be produced. The odor threshold is the point at which an odor may just be detected." This, of course, can be very subjective — and some are concerned that can leave room for complaints driven by racist or xenophobic motivations.
Tran noted that the restaurant had been visited "at least 10 different" times within the past few years and the original complaints were made back in 2022. Dong has since "tried a number of fixes" throughout the kitchen, from hoods and exhaust system to charcoal filters, going as far as "cooking meat at his other locations and driving it to the Northeast Portland restaurant" — but this did not stop the complaints.
"After the last inspection, Dong said that the city ordered him to either close the restaurant or pay a $4,000 fine," Train wrote. "He added that if he did not close the restaurant, he would face an additional $3,600 fine."
This then resulted in the restaurant's closing on February 3.
Dong is still paying rent on the building and is entirely unclear on when — or if — he may even be able to reopen the establishment which is resulting in thousands of dollars of lost revenue (around $80,000, according to Tran). He also has not been advised of any next steps, further complicating the frustrations.
Portland commissioner Carmen Rubio wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that she was "alarmed" to learn of the closure back on March 6. Tran also writes that the existence of the code itself is "potentially discriminatory" and has resulted in "some Asian American lawmakers raising questions about whether this ia discriminatory incident."
On March 6, Nguyen and four other Asian-American and Vietnamese representatives in Oregon released a statement stating that the code "is discriminatory and unfair, particularly to more vulnerable communities," according to Tran, writing that "the city’s odor code is discriminatory and not objective by any known standards, leaving out certain, minority-owned small businesses,”
