PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — An updated Portland odor code will go into effect about a year after a Vietnamese restaurant shut down due to smell complaints from a neighbor.
Portland City Council approved the new ordinance on Wednesday. Under the amended code, odor regulations no longer apply to companies “for which odor is an inherent part of their business model” — like restaurants, cafes and bakeries.
The odor code was first called into question in late February of this year, when Northeast Portland’s Pho Gabo closed following anonymous complaints about the smell of grilled food.
The following month, Portland Commissioner Carmen Rubio asked officials to pause odor code enforcement and ordered the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability to update the ordinance.
According to an announcement from her office, Pho Gabo Owner Eddie Dong already made multiple attempts to mitigate odor at his restaurant. The commissioner said his final attempt could have cost an additional $50,000.
In light of these events, City Council announced the code will now fall within the city’s property maintenance laws instead of its planning and zoning laws. Businesses will also be permitted to have 30 minutes of “continuous odor emissions” every day, rather than the daily 15-minute limit outlined in the previous ordinance.
Furthermore, the amended code establishes that Property Compliance Services will only open an odor investigation after the city receives at least five complaints from five people within 30 days.
Officials are requiring complainants to live within 150 feet of the businesses they are reporting.
“The change will eliminate the threat to these businesses that one complaint about any sustained odor from their businesses could lead to enforcement actions that could include prohibitively expensive upgrades to their ventilation system,” the amended ordinance reads. “A secondary impact is to residential neighbors to these businesses who will no longer be able to call in odor complaints against retail sales and service businesses to the Portland Planning and Development (PP&D) code enforcement group.”
These recent changes to the odor code will go into effect on March 1, 2025.
