This surely reminds me of my childhood, growing produce and running to the farmers’ markets in Thomasville, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida. Thomasville had a big auction block-style dock where you’d drive up and set up a quick mini-display. “Pinhookers” were the buyers who would bid on your goods, buy and repack them in their boxes, and resell to larger buyers or in their own stores to make some profit.
Well, that was 30 years ago. Now, “pinhooking” is not as easy; you have to follow commercial food harvesting laws, need proper equipment to sanitize and package, and trucks and trailers with cold storage. The fellow I’m about to talk about, he had none of the above.
Nope, can’t load the truck until the bumper scrapes anymore…
On Friday afternoon, April 29th, a Penske cargo truck was traveling up I-65 through Jackson County, Indiana. The truck had a blow out and began throwing debris along the road. That caused another driver to call 911. After the truck passed the Jackson County Weigh Station, the officers from Indiana Motor Carrier Inspection pursued and pulled the truck over. They found it to be overloaded by 15,000 pounds. These trucks only have a cargo capacity of 10,000 pounds, so I guess the driver did not understand what the 26,000-pound gross vehicle weight limit meant. The truck was impounded and the Jackson County Health Department Food Service Inspector was called down to the scale house.
“The driver of the vehicle, a Miami, Florida resident, received citations related to transporting perishable foods in excess of acceptable temperatures and not having a required logbook. Numerous other motor carrier violations were noted on an inspection report. The driver was then released with the truck containing the remaining food items he was permitted to possess.”
Indiana State Police
And of course, the truck was packed to the gills with produce and some 400 cases of beer. It was a plain dry box, so no cooling was used, and the 200 pounds of fish, 400 bags of produce had to be destroyed. The beer was seized because no taxes were paid when it crossed state lines.
