State health officials said it’s not easy to find illegal food vendors operating on Oahu during business hours, but plenty of permitless operators pop up on weekends and holidays when they know they can get away with it.

"We have had no overtime approvals for seven years, other than for active foodborne illness investigations," said Peter Oshiro, manager of the Health Department’s Environmental Health Program. "So these guys have flourished; they know we don’t come out (after hours)."

Oshiro accompanied a crew of three inspectors Saturday making weekend rounds for the first time in what he said has been seven or eight years. That team issued five cease-and-desist orders in Windward and North Shore areas, while another two-person team traveled west and issued 10 stop orders, he said. A violation could result in a $1,000 fine for the first offense.

The sweeps are set to continue through Monday.

Two of the first group’s five citations were issued near the Hygienic Store in Kahaluu.

One of those vendors was George Halas, who said he made an honest mistake by not renewing the permit for his Holo Holo Stop food truck.

"My wife does all the paperwork for me and all the taxes and everything, and we kind of went far behind and that’s how it goes," he said. "She been talking to the Health Department and we supposed to go in this week, and I was so busy doing other things."

Mike Okamura, lead inspector for the team, said Halas’ permit was expired, and he had an incorrect kitchen address listed.

Oshiro said mobile food vendors are required to obtain a two-year permit for both their wagon and a department-approved kitchen. He said permits are not expensive, at about $150 each, but vendors often try to operate illegally because they prepare food in a kitchen that would not comply with department standards.

"That’s the biggest holdup," Oshiro said. "If you’re running a legal mobile unit, you have to do all your food prep in an approved kitchen. Typically on the wagon itself you’re only hot-holding, cold-holding or doing final cooking or serving. … The most difficult part for someone is to find a legal kitchen to work out of."

The department monitors more than 6,000 legal food vendors on Oahu alone, which include kitchens, grocery stores, markets and gas stations that prepare and sell food. Oshiro said permitted mobile food vendors are a small fraction of that number at roughly 350 vendors, but they are more high-profile because they often do business on the side of the road.

While the department has heard anecdotally that the illegal food vending business has grown over the years, Oshiro said it doesn’t know to what extent because it hasn’t been monitoring the field on weekends or holidays. He said this weekend’s sweep was not spurred by a foodborne illness outbreak — in fact, he said the department hasn’t logged any foodborne illness outbreaks that can be traced back to a food truck.

"It’s not something where we should be waiting for people to start getting ill and ending up in the hospital," he said. "We’re trying to be really proactive."

The second vendor cited near the Hygienic Store was forced to shutter the wagon and take down "Grand Opening" signs when Okamura determined that the owner did not have a permit.

Okamura talked to the establishment’s owner on the phone because he was not present. When Okamura did not find the vendor in the department’s database, the vendor tried telling him that he was operating on a temporary food service permit. That, too, was found to be false.

"He had a permit prior, so he knows the procedure," Okamura said. "These people, a lot of them, they know what the procedure is: They have to apply, they have to get a permit. But for some reason, I’m not certain why, but they either forget or cannot comply, so they go ahead and operate illegally."

Okamura said it can be frustrating to have to decipher fact from fiction when it comes to illegal vendors, but he doesn’t let tall tales stop him from finding out the truth.

"People want you to think that they’re legal, so if you’re not on it you might just say, ‘OK, yeah, I believe you,’ and stuff like that," he said. "But we have to verify everything that they say, we cannot just take their word for it. We’ve caught a lot of people like that; they want to fool you."

Oshiro said another way to stop illegal vendors is to put a damper on their business.

"The main message is for the public not to purchase food from vendors that do not have permits," he said.