The Persistent Complaining of One Neighbor Closed a Vietnamese Restaurant

Story: PORTLAND LOCATION OF PHO GABO CLOSES AFTER 18-MONTH BATTLE WITH NEIGHBOR. What happened: Pho Gabo, a Vietnamese restaurant at Northeast 73rd Avenue and Fremont Street, closed after one persistent neighbor complained to the city for almost two years about the smell of meat cooking. “The odors detected smell like a wok dish,” a city inspector wrote in October 2023. According to the city’s odor code, which had been on the books for decades, the threshold for a violation was “any detectable odor” based solely on the inspector’s nose. The restaurant owner, Eddie Dong, couldn’t afford a $40,000 air filtration system that was still no guarantee against the sensitive olfactory nerves of the anonymous neighbor. With complaints from the neighbor continuing to pour in and unpaid fines by the city threatening to double, Pho Gabo closed Feb. 3.

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