I am very concerned about our company, The Car Wash Guys and the possibility that International terrorists might use our mobile car wash trucks as tools to distribute biological weapons. We use trucks and trailer units that have capacities in excess of 600 gallons and low volume, high-pressure sprayers. Our team has washed cars at office buildings, military bases, mass transit districts, rent a car companies, airports, malls, QSRs, grocery stores, shipping and distribution yards, truck stops, parking structures, golf courses, media buildings, etc, etc. We wash things like shopping carts, wheelchairs, school buses, trucks, aircraft, boats, awnings, concrete, decks, playground equipment, etc, etc. In a single day our crews may be at 10-20 locations, in a week each truck/crew maybe as many as 120 locations, throughout a given city. And we have set up franchises in 23 states so far and that means in a lot of cities. What concerns me here is this:

In our UFOC (Uniform Franchise Offering Circular) there is a list of franchisees, with names, addresses, phones numbers, and areas. It contains the perfect information of everything an evil-doer needs, except a map of how to get to the franchisees location. Even of more concern. Many of our franchisees own multiple trucks (units) and many park such units at their homes. They are not guarded they are just parked there. Someone could easily walk up and put something inside of the tank and walk away and our franchisees would then be spraying chemicals of mass destruction all over the city the next day. That would be bad. Not only from a franchisor’s stand point and damage of brand name, but also from a stand point of what damage it could do to America. I am not alone in this problem. Think about TrueGreen ChemLawn, Pest control franchises, etc. We are all at risk, yet nobody is thinking there.

We have set up special precautions to protect our Water Supply Tanks, have other franchisors? I believe it is up to each franchise system to do a RISK EVALUTION of such things, put it in writing and protect ourselves and our franchises. The franch

In our UFOC (Uniform Franchise Offering Circular) there is a list of franchisees, with names, addresses, phones numbers, and areas. It contains the perfect information of everything an evil-doer needs, except a map of how to get to the franchisees location. Even of more concern. Many of our franchisees own multiple trucks (units) and many park such units at their homes. They are not guarded they are just parked there. Someone could easily walk up and put something inside of the tank and walk away and our franchisees would then be spraying chemicals of mass destruction all over the city the next day. That would be bad. Not only from a franchisor’s stand point and damage of brand name, but also from a stand point of what damage it could do to America. I am not alone in this problem. Think about TrueGreen ChemLawn, Pest control franchises, etc. We are all at risk, yet nobody is thinking there.

We have set up special precautions to protect our Water Supply Tanks, have other franchisors? I believe it is up to each franchise system to do a RISK EVALUTION of such things, put it in writing and protect ourselves and our franchises. The franch

We have set up special precautions to protect our Water Supply Tanks, have other franchisors? I believe it is up to each franchise system to do a RISK EVALUTION of such things, put it in writing and protect ourselves and our franchises. The franch

We have set up special precautions to protect our Water Supply Tanks, have other franchisors? I believe it is up to each franchise system to do a RISK EVALUTION of such things, put it in writing and protect ourselves and our franchises. The franchising community, together can do our part. Think about the idea of a direct mail franchise company, there are many like Money Mailer, Coupon Clipper, etc. Additionally; I propose a simple idea. Delete the section of the UFOC with listings of franchisees, names, areas and addresses. Until a more final phase of the sale and after the franchisor receives a ten-year background check from the prospect. Or perhaps only if it is asked for from the prospect in writing later. Putting out a list of everyone who owns a ChemLawn truck in the country is just stupid right now. How about the name brands which are American icons, like McDonalds. After all last time they went after AMERICAN AIRLINES and UNITED AIRLINES. I have already had competitors who pretended to be a prospect, later dump hydrofluoric acid in the tanks of one of my franchisees a couple of years ago to cause him to damage the paint on customers car so he could pick up an account from an auto dealer our franchisee washed for. We did not figure out what happened for quite a while and only learned of it after the damage and an employee of the competitor became disgruntled and told us. What if that were anthrax?

Even more scary is the fact that I had several former franchisees who were Muslim, who often discussed their despise of our government. Which I guess was probably them exercising their free speech, which is allowed of course, yet now it does not seem so innocent. There are so many franchises out their that have free access to facilities, such as; Shred It, AmeriSpec, American Leak Detector, Environmental Biotech, Merry Maids, Service Master, Terminex, ChemDry. I have personally seen the ease at which our company transverses through airport fencing, security gates, etc. They see the truck and the uniformed employee and wave us forward. Now think about this problem, our team without knowing it could deliver a bio weapon simply by an evil-doer dumping something in a tank. Very few lawn companies or termite pest control companies lock their tanks, I know this because our company washes these trucks, and rarely are their any locks on the tanks.