4/7/1992 - Laserfiche WebLink

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- ® M Commissioner Bowman believed the roadside stands are a great convenience to the consumer, and Commissioner Scurlock pointed out that it does provide the consumer with lower costs. James Anthony, owner of Anthony's Wholesale Distributors, 628 High Street, Sebastian, stated that their business involves the processing and wholesaling of seafood products. What they retail from their mobile unit is a natural product of Indian River, it is the freshest and finest seafood you can get anywhere. They have a good product that they have to get to market and the means they are using to get it to market is as old as the industry itself. They have the same overhead that any retailer has because they also operate a permanent facility for processing which is located on 628 High Street. High Street is an unpaved, bumpy road and people do not want to drive down that road to buy their fish. Commissioner Scurlock asked what Mr. Anthony's feelings would be about establishing some satellite stores rather than selling out of a truck, and Mr. Anthony explained the problem with that is that it would run up the cost of the product. He stressed that they are putting a local product on the streets for a cost less than what is charged in supermarkets where most of the seafood is imported from other states and countries. About 950 of the fish they sell comes from local fishermen. All of their fin fish comes from Sebastian as well as all of their shellfish with the exception of scallops. Their mobile unit is a state-of-the-art vehicle, not an eyesore. It is licensed by every department in the State of Florida. In fact, pictures were taken of it for the DNR to use as a guide when they rewrite their mobile vending requirements. Nothing is left on the premises; everything is retained in storage tanks. There isn't that fish market smell when people enter the mobile unit. In fact, people come in, look around and remark how nice it is. Mr. Anthony circulated pictures of the mobile unit. If the Board was inclined to permit this based on the fact that they would be required to have a permanent, licensed location, Commissioner Bird wondered if there would be some kind of limitation on the number of satellite locations they could operate out of that main base. He felt the only reason that produce is mentioned in the ordinance is that it is a home grown product, so to speak, and he felt that you could probably stretch that to include seafood. He didn't think anyone wanted to see a total proliferation of these things. He recalled that at one time we had furniture sales and everything else you could imagine up and down the road, and he didn't think we wanted to create that again. However, we may be able to expand on it slightly to enable an operation like this to do business here with certain restrictions. 39 APR 07 1 � , ,c