**AUSTIN, Texas** — A new law takes effect Tuesday that could ease the regulatory burden on food truck operators across Texas, replacing a patchwork of local permits with a single statewide license.
Melissa, 45 miles north of Dallas in Collin County, is a fast-growing city of roughly 20,000 residents.
Texas House Bill 2844, authored by Rep. Brooks Landgraf of Odessa, creates a unified permit system administered by the Texas Department of State Health Services rather than requiring operators to obtain separate health permits from every city and county where they sell food.
“What it does is instead of having a different health permit for every jurisdiction, a food truck operator can have one statewide health permit that’s good anywhere in the state of Texas,” Landgraf said. “It really cuts down on the red tape; it cuts down on these vendors having to spend so much time going through unnecessary bureaucratic mazes to pay multiple fees just to have the same health standard.”
Under the previous system, operators could pay between $300 and more than $1,000 per jurisdiction for permit applications and pre-licensing fees, with additional inspection costs of up to $500 depending on food type. One Houston-area business owner told KHOU 11 he paid upward of $3,000 annually in permits alone because his business operated across multiple jurisdictions.
