The City of Tacoma is requiring restaurants to install new gravity feed interceptor grease traps that can cost in excess of $100,000 despite more cost-effective options being available. The traps require extensive property modifications and a large concrete tank to be installed and for some restaurants who lease their properties, this is infeasible.

A grease trap is an important device to filter out the grease from food waste before it gets into the sewer system and can cause clogging issues. There are multiple solutions available to trap grease, but the city code requires the concrete tank solution for medium to large restaurants that meet a threshold on meals served per hour. This was not an issue until the city changed the way the policy was enforced in 2020 during the pandemic to include meal deliveries. At that time, the city started to approve business permits based on the use of the grease trap. The change effectively makes it cost prohibitive for restaurants to offer food delivery since the policy puts the restaurant over the threshold.

Without the $100,000 tank, restaurants are denied permits to deliver food.

The alternatives to the concrete tank include a smaller catchment system installed between the sink and the sewer system that requires more employee labor to maintain, but achieves the same result at much less cost.

The city, however, is not flexing on the requirement for restaurants that sell more than 40 meals per hour, requiring them to have an underground tank.

The rules that Tacoma is applying are an example of how government can destroy small business. City leaders should intervene to create rules that allow alternative, more cost-effective catchment systems to help restaurants in Tacoma be successful.

Without allowing alternate grease trap systems, restaurants considering opening in Tacoma who cannot afford the large tank system, may look elsewhere to establish the business.