Bid to close Sriracha plant due to smell denied

Hadley Malcolm | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Tempers heat up over Sriracha | YoungMoney A California town sues the company that makes Sriracha for stinking up the neighborhood.

Some Irwindale residents say smell from hot sauce factory causes headaches%2C sore throats

Odor from factory only obvious during jalapeno harvest season

Huy Fong Foods took in %2485 million last year

An attempt by a Southern California town to shut down a hot sauce factory because of its smell has been denied.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert O'Brien rejected the city of Irwindale's initial bid Thursday to shutter the plant that makes Sriracha hot sauce until the company can reduce the odor, City News Service reported.

"You're asking for a very radical order on 24-hour notice," O'Brien told attorney June Ailin, representing the city.

A Nov. 22 hearing was scheduled on a preliminary injunction.

The sprawling 650,000-square-foot factory owned by Huy Fong Foods processes some 100 million pounds of peppers a year into Sriracha (pronounced sree-YAH-chah) and two other popular Asian food sauces.

The peppers get washed, mixed with garlic and a few other ingredients and roasted. The odor coming from the factory is only there for about three months out of the year, during the California jalapeno pepper harvest season, which stretches from August to about the end of October or first week of November. That's three months too long for some Irwindale residents.

They've complained the garlic and chili fumes are so strong that they get headaches, sore throats and watery eyes. The pepper and garlic fumes are sent through a carbon-based filtration system that dissipates them before they leave the building.

Huy Fong executives said they were cooperating with the city to reduce the smell, but balked at the city's suggestion of putting in a $600,000 filtration system that may not be necessary.

The company said it was looking into other alternatives when the city sued.

Sriracha's little plastic squeeze bottles with their distinctive green caps are ubiquitous in restaurants and home pantries around the world.

Company founder David Tran said his privately held business took in about $85 million last year. Tran moved his production facility to Irwindale from nearby Rosemead two years ago. Tran started cooking up his signature product in a bucket in 1980 and delivering it by van to a handful of customers. When the company came to Irwindale, it brought about 60 full-time jobs and 200 more seasonal ones to the city of about 1,400 people.

The secret, he said, is in getting the freshest peppers possible and processing them immediately. The result is a sauce so fiercely hot it makes Tabasco and Picante seem mild, though to those with fireproof palates and iron stomachs it is strangely addicting.

Contributing: Associated Press