Grease Interceptor Regulations: California vs Israel

In my current engineering practice I have many businesses asking for help in their complicated regulatory problems and their legal entanglements. My Clients feel that elsewhere the grass is greener, and I am sure they are right, but not in Los Angeles.

On 1,100 square feet of land, there aren't many places large enough to bury a 9,000-pound concrete box the size of a minivan. Jason Michaud was in the process of opening his first restaurant, a small neighborhood joint in Silver Lake called Local. The concrete box he had to place in his land was the housing for a 750-gallon grease trap -- called an interceptor -- and as a result of a lawsuit filed against the city in 2001 by environmental regulators and concerned environmental groups, the placement of such a device is mandatory for all new restaurants.

The space required for Michaud's own grave would be much smaller, and at times he felt as if he were digging that too. The hillside behind the property has an apartment building perched at its top, and at the time, the hill was not properly retained. Michaud hired an engineer to take a look, and the engineer wrote a letter to the city saying that it wasn't safe to dig a hole that big. The city then sent out one of its own engineers, who decided that it was.

"They said I had the space, even if I had to reinforce the hill, which would have cost $300,000," Michaud says. "So we took a gamble and put the interceptor in." The hill stayed put, but the restaurant's opening was delayed by eight months. Now, five months after the opening of Local (which emphasizes local ingredients and sustainable living and tries to encourage patrons to use public transit or bicycles when visiting), he is pitted in a costly battle with the city over parking spaces. Michaud says he believed that because the restaurant was counter-service only, he didn't need them. The city allowed the restaurant to open, but then came back with a later request that he offer parking. "It's a terrible, broken system, trying to open a restaurant. It devastates people."

I am trying to help these courageous entrepreneurs that are struggling with blind and stupid regulation. I am trying to design a better grease interceptor, and submitted a design of a fiberglass interceptor to a manufacturer, asking for quote. Pic.: The Concept of what I am trying to manufacture and sell. Mine will have several improvements, like temperature, pH and conductivity meters. Also a biological enhancement option. And some kind of alarm system to indicate that it has to be cleaned out (I have to think about that.) We shall conquer the world market...