A McDonald’s at 3131 Mayfair Road in Wauwatosa was, according to the Journal Sentinel, closed briefly two weeks ago because of issues with handwashing, and the restaurant was forced to give customers refunds at the counter, public records from the city showed.

The restaurant closed March 12 for several hours while a hand sink was being repaired. There were none working in the kitchen for washing hands or in the rest of the restaurant,except in the bathrooms. Restaurants in Wisconsin are required to have sinks designated solely for washing hands.

The inspection yielded several other violations, including dirty utensils, accumulations of food debris and grease, wiping rags in sanitizer buckets that didn’t have any sanitizer in them and a lack of basic knowledge about food safety.

According to the inspection report, one employee said, “Why do we have to wash our hands? We wear gloves.”

The inspector also instructed staff to throw out undated foods from the refrigerators.

Owner Deborah Allen said in a statement, “Nothing is more important to me than operating a safe and clean restaurant. We follow rigorous standards for food safety and quality, and we take great pride in the food and beverages we serve to our customers every day. We take these matters very seriously, and took immediate action to make the appropriate corrections.”

The inspection report is available at the Journal Sentinel’s restaurant inspection page, jsonline.com/data, which houses restaurant inspection data from the four-county Milwaukee area and is updated monthly. Wauwatosa is not included with other cities and towns in the four-county database because the city has said it is not able to release its database. Instead, the city provides inspection reports weekly.