Texas Officials Celebrate Tamales Seized By Authorities

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Authorities in Texas are celebrating a massive bust of contraband from last week. The Ector County Health Department went onto social media to post about the seizure last week, and posted about it...a lot. 

The Ector County Health Department shared it on their main Facebook page, their "Food Service" page, and even their "Water Quality Program" page. They were really proud of this bust.

Which was of course, a bust of 25 dozen tamales. That's right, the illegal substances that were seized by authorities were tamales.

Now, according to one of the Ector County Health Department posts, there's actually a law that allows them to seize the (assumed to be) delicious tamales. Here's what they posted:

"Texas law (Texas Health and Safety Code 437.016) prohibits food sales from those who are not permitted from a restaurant or mobile food establishment. On 9-8-2022, 25 dozen Tamales were seized from a street vendor's vehicle and the vendor was issued a citation. All food items that are seized by the ECHD are documented and properly disposed of to prevent any food borne illnesses."

Ector County, Texas is the Odessa area, where we can assume that there are a lot of tamales. A lot of very tasty tamales in fact. But we know there are 25 dozen less now. Those have been 'taken off the streets' as authorities like to declare in these type of posts.

This whole thing is interesting not only because authorities decided that unlicensed tamales were the most dangerous thing on the streets of Ector County, but just think about how this went down. Was someone handcuffed? Did they use a SWAT team? Were there helicopters involved? The posts say a citation was issued in addition to the seizure, so someone treated this way too seriously.