You Wonder Why Business Bypass Toronto

The bureaucracy and cost of selling hot dogs is probably one reason but I was surprised at the reason for this entrepreneur opening his business and whether it gives us a glimpse of the economic future and the state of our education system...... "He wants to build something he can pass on to the kids."

Vendor's grill of his dreams

Hot dog cart finally hits street

By IAN ROBERTSON, SUN MEDIA

It took Dean Baisley four months to get his "Bentley of hot dog carts" rolling.

Not that he wouldn't have liked to hit the streets earlier, the former mall supervisor said yesterday -- his first day of street-cooking.

But he didn't anticipate getting bogged down in city bureaucracy for four months.

After "some problems, pay issues" at a plaza where he even cleaned up parking lots, Baisley, 37, decided: "I wanted to build something I can pass on to the kids."

At ages 11, 7 and three months, they're not quite ready to join him serving food a la cart.

With saved and borrowed money, he picked up his shiny new $15,000, 40-dog cart from its manufacturer, Silver Star, on June 20.

But plans for food-handling lessons were interrupted by the 39-day strike by civic employess.

Facing a $100 fee, Baisley learned instead of the Hot Dog Vendors' Association.

Its lessons cost $80 and he passed faster than a predicted three-month delay for the municipal course, followed by a four-to-six-week wait for a city certificate.

If he'd waited for the strike's end July 31, "I'd still be sitting there on my thumb," he said.

Learning to scrub the cart scrupulously also paid off and he passed the $160 Toronto Public Health inspection, "which nobody told me about."

He rejected a city-owned site -- yearly rental $7,000 -- and moved onto a private spot near a car wash on Wendal Ave., south of Wilson Ave. and Jane St.

He had sold only 24 wieners and sausages by yesterday afternoon but is aiming for "12 dozen on a good day."