TULSA, Okla. — This year, several pieces of legislation including the Food Truck Freedom Act under HB 1076 and Food Truck Fire Safety Under HB 2459 presented some new rules for food truck owners to follow.
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Fire Marshall to begin new food truck inspections as new law takes effect
The laws state each food trunk vendor has to have the proper licensing to sell their food products to the public.
More can be read here on the state’s website about what kinds of licenses are needed.
The laws also require food trucks to meet new Fire Marshall standards in terms of fire and gas usage.
One of the biggest requirements is installing a fire-supression system into the trucks, as required by the Fire Marshall.
Food truck owners like Samuel Ramirez said it cost a pretty penny to get their trucks up to par, but he’s glad it’ll lead to a safer environment.
“We invest around like $6,200 to $6,500 just to do the installation for the fire suppression and also for the LP or the plumbing installation,” he said. “This is for our own safety and for the public safety.”
Several groups are teaming-up to make sure future inspections go smoothly, including the State Fire Marshall, the LP Gas Administration as well as individual cities and counties.
Nicholas Nadeau is the Deputy Administrator for the LP Gas Administration.
He said while he doesn’t have a concrete number of how many violations have been noted, he says there are still many trucks that have not been updated to meet requirements.
“There’s a lot that’s not compliant due to the fact a lot of these trucks are made in other states, or even coming up from Mexico,” he said. “There’s a lot of code that’s being invalid that’s actually life safety.”
Nadeau said trucks will be shut down if owners are going against “life safety” requirements, including having rubber hoses inside or having gas tanks next to things like emergency exits.
“We’re just here to help the public and hopefully get some changes made to make it more easier to get inspected,” he said. “Hopefully this year’s legislation session will help us out, get us moving the right direction.”
Inspections need to be completed by January 1 if vendors want to avoid inspection feed from the Fire Marshall.
Free food truck inspections will be taking place December 9 from 9am to 12pm at 1201 N Mustang Road, Mustang, Oklahoma.
For LP Gas, there are no inspection fees, but there is an operating permit vendors need to get on the administration’s website in order to keep operating, which has an administration fee of $10.
Having this permit will allow vendors who have completed their inspections to keep operating their food trucks and correct every requirement needed to be compliant with new rules up until Nov. 1, 2026 unless they are violating life safety rules.
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