City leaders, state representatives and members of Portland’s Asian American community continue to express concern after the closure of Phở Gabo, a 5-year-old Vietnamese restaurant fined by the city after a neighbor complained about its smell.
As first reported by Willamette Week, owner Eddie Dong first learned from the City of Portland’s Bureau of Development Services that he was in violation of a 2022 zoning code that prohibits odors impacting a nearby residential neighborhood. Despite deep cleaning the exhaust system and grilling meats offsite, the restaurant was the subject of an anonymous neighbor’s continued complaints and the city began issuing fines.
Rather than pay up to $40,000 for a new filtration system, Dong taped a sign to the door last month announcing that the Portland restaurant’s closure — Phở Gabo also has locations in Happy Valley and Hillsboro — was “due to the city’s and the neighborhood’s complaints about the smell of the food.”
The building at 7330 N.E. Fremont St. has been home to a Vietnamese restaurant for nearly three decades. Before it was Phở Gabo, the space was a long-running Northeast Portland outpost of local chain Phở Hùng, which opened in 1995.
On Wednesday, Portland Commissioner Carmen Rubio met with Dong and directed the Bureau of Development Services to put a pause on investigating odor complaints until the city’s relevant regulations could be re-evaluated.
“My goal is to see the code changes happen as soon as possible,” Rubio wrote.
Also on Wednesday, five Vietnamese American state representatives from the Portland area — Rep. Daniel Nguyen, Rep. Hai Pham, Rep. Thuy Tran, Rep. Hoa Nguyen and Rep. Khanh Pham — issued a joint statement expressing concern about the city’s odor code.
“We believe that, as currently written and enforced, the city’s odor code is discriminatory and not objective by any known standards,” the group wrote. “We stand ready to work with Commissioner Rubio and ensure that city code is fair and reasonable, and ultimately the city of Portland retains the vibrant food culture celebrating our diverse community.”
Community and trade groups have also spoken out about the the restaurant’s closure.
Last week, the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association demanded that the city stop enforcing its subjective, unfair “smell code” immediately.
“For other code violations, such as noise, vibration and even glare, there are measurable, objective standards but surprisingly, the city’s code written for ‘odor’ violations is entirely subjective,” wrote association president and CEO Jason Brandt. “It’s unbelievable that an anonymous person’s repeated complaints about an odor can shut down an entire restaurant, potentially displacing its workers and causing the operator irreparable financial harm.”
Unlike other nuisance complaints, the city does not require the use of any equipment to verify the presence of a problematic odors besides the inspector’s nose. According to city code governing offsite impacts, “the odor threshold is the point at which an odor may be detected.”
APANO, a statewide social justice group advocating for Asians and Pacific Islanders, argued in a statement that those perceptions of smell — grilling meat, clove-scented broth — can be “influenced by xenophobic biases” and “disproportionately impacts the BIPOC-owned businesses that bring vibrancy and cultural diversity to our neighborhoods.”
“Long used as a tactic for displacing and removing Asian communities, olfactory racism has deep roots in this country dating back hundreds of years,” the group wrote. “With this closure, our community is losing a vital small business and reinforcing harmful stereotypes and tropes around Asians, our food, culture, and right to belong.”
As for Dong, the restaurateur said he was happy that potential changes to city code might mean that other small business owners don’t have to go through the same experience he did.
“I am deeply appreciative of the support extended to us during the unfortunate circumstances my business is currently facing,” Dong wrote. “For those interested in providing direct support, the most effective way is to visit our two remaining locations.”
Phở Gabo’s remaining locations can be found at 9960 S.E 82nd Ave. in Happy Valley, 503-694-3955; and at 2331 N.W. 185th Ave. in Hillsboro, 503-430-1211; phogabo.com
— Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com
Staff reporter Shane Dixon Kavanaugh contributed to this report.