Texas Tries to Lasso Sriracha Away From CA

With Huy Fong Foods under siege at its current Irwindale home, a group of Texas lawmakers calling itself the "Sriracha delegation" is traveling to California today to try to convince owner David Tran to move the company. "I am confident that this group will be able to communicate with Mr. Tran ... the benefit of conducting business in the Lone Star State where frivolous litigation is not business as usual," says Dallas Rep. Jason Villalba, who's been pushing for the meeting for months, WFAA reports.

The group will tour the Irwindale factory and hold a closed-door meeting with Tran and other Huy Fong officials today, the Texas Tribune reports. Almost two dozen cities have made similar pitches, NPR reports, but so far Tran has said he wants to stay in California, where he's lived for more than 30 years. The company recently planted a new crop of jalapenos there despite the uncertainty, the Pasadena Star-News reports. But Tran might open a factory elsewhere, and clearly isn't happy about the flap. He told NPR he left Vietnam to escape the repressive government. "Today, I feel almost the same. Even now, we live in [the] USA, and my feeling, the government, not a big difference." (More Sriracha stories.)