Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have allowed an informal network of home cooks to sell perishable food legally. The backlash has been fierce.
Updated 5:46 p.m. ET
PHOENIX — Milagros Cruz was down to her last $75, and sleeping in a car, when she heard her mother’s voice guiding her in a dream: My girl, make tamales.
Arizona did not make it easy. Though the state promotes itself as a low-tax, low-regulation haven for private enterprise, it does not allow the sale of perishable foods made at home. So for years, a thriving economy of working-class, mostly Latina home cooks has operated underground, selling tacos, tres leches cakes and chile-dusted corn illegally from living rooms and outside laundromats and soccer games.
Ms. Cruz, 41, sells her pillowy green-chile and pork tamales near a Phoenix auto-parts store, and worries about getting cited under a state law that punishes home cooks who break the rules with a $500 fine and six months in jail. She said she would gladly operate legally if she could, but the state offered no way for her to do so.
This month, Republicans who control the state’s fractious Legislature came together with Democrats in a moment of unusual bipartisan accord to try to change all that. They passed a bill that would let Arizona’s home cooks register with the state to legally sell perishable foods like salsas and tamales.
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