Tag Archives: New York City

Hundreds of NYC restaurateurs, or 4.2%, sound off on sanitary inspections

Posted on by
2

The New York City Council will announce Wednesday that nearly 1,000 restaurant operators have responded, after only two weeks, to a Web survey seeking their views about the city health department’s new letter-grading system for food safety.

As of Tuesday, 965 responses had been submitted — a sign “that we’ve hit a nerve,” said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker. “We’re getting surveys from every borough, and from very diverse neighborhoods.”

Opinions expressed in the responses will be revealed in Council hearings scheduled for late February or early March. Responding to what the speaker said was “a wave of complaints” about letter grading, the Council posted a questionnaire on its Web site (www.council.nyc.gov) asking the city’s 24,000 restaurateurs to share information about their experiences with inspectors and administrative tribunals, and the cost of fines and inspection consultants.

Susan Craig, a department spokeswoman, said a survey last summer showed that 90 percent of New Yorkers approved of letter grading, and questioned the methodology and the validity of the Council questionnaire, which asks for but does not require the names of respondents. “The survey has no method of confirming that a participant is actually a restaurant, nor does it ensure that an entrant fills out only one submission,” Ms. Craig said. “The results — good or bad — will have negligible value.”

But Zoe Tobin, a Council spokeswoman, responded that “there is a vetting system in place” that checks for duplication and fraud. “We felt that anonymity was important to encourage candid responses,” she said.

A survey response rate of 4.2 per cent sorta sucks and isn’t representative of much.

More complaints about New York City restaurant inspections

Posted on by
Reply

Crain’s New York reports that when a health-department inspector visited XES Lounge in Chelsea last month, he gave general manager Tony Juliano a ticket for having unwrapped straws on the bar. Those straws have been there for nearly eight years, but this time it was deemed a $400 violation.

A few months earlier, inspectors cited the business for a missing “No smoking” sign in the back of the bar, which has 11 employees. “We’ve been open since 2004 and were never cited for that,” said Mr. Juliano.

His frustrations echo that of many small business owners in the city, who view fines for minor offenses as punitive and feel the process for paying and contesting violations is burdensome.

In mid-October, Marisol Chino, the owner of Tepeyac Deli & Grocery on Irving Avenue in Brooklyn, was cited for having a metal food stand outside, instead of a wooden one. “They’ve been inspecting me for seven years and never told me that,” she said. “They gave me the option to pay a $200 fine or fight it, but if I lose, the fine goes to $1,000.”

A few months earlier, Ms. Chino, who is the store’s only employee, received a ticket for not having the store’s refund policy posted, even though she claims it was in the front window. When she brought that sign to the attention of the inspector, she said, he refused to change the citation.

The city’s public advocate, Bill de Blasio, is now getting involved after hearing from chambers of commerce, business improvement districts and small businesses at a series of roundtables he hosted earlier this year. Mr. de Blasio said businesses repeatedly mentioned the fines as among the most infuriating and time-consuming obstacles they face. His office submitted a legislative request to the City Council, the first step to introducing a bill that would allow violations from city agencies like Consumer Affairs to be contested and paid online, by mail or by phone. Fines would be differentiated more fairly between severe and low-risk violations, especially for those that don’t originate from a consumer complaint. And the bill would allow business owners with first-time, low-level citations to be given a chance to correct them before being fined.

Careful with that cat: electric fence keeps Matilda the Algonquin Hotel cat from food areas

Posted on by
Reply

The lobby of New York City’s famed Algonquin Hotel has been surrounded with an invisible electric fence in hopes it will keep the health department happy.

The New York Times reports an electric fence was installed in late summer after someone called 311 and the health department threatened the hotel with action: keep Matilda the cat away from food service and dining areas.

Matilda is the latest in a long line of Algonquin cats going back to the 1930s. The first, a stray who wandered in off West 44th Street with as much elan as a famous guest, was known as Rusty or Hamlet. Since then, each cat has been succeeded by another with the same name, Hamlet for the males, Matilda for the females.

A spokeswoman for the health department, Susan Craig, said that the letter about Matilda was “automatically generated” and that the department “did not find evidence substantiating that complaint.”

She said that during a recent inspection, the hotel had explained the ins and outs of the electric fence “perimeter outside of the food service area to contain the cat.”

“Our food safety inspector acknowledged this,” Ms. Craig wrote in an e-mail, “and concurred that cats should be kept out of dining, kitchen or other food-preparation areas.” For all her mentions in newspaper articles, Matilda has never been mentioned in the Algonquin’s restaurant inspection reports from the health department.

Councilor critical of NYC restaurant grade system; ‘borderline harassment’

Posted on by
Reply

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn on Friday voiced serious concerns about New York City’s restaurant inspection and grading system, calling for a series of oversight hearings for a process that she criticized as borderline harassment.

Michael Howard Saul of The Wall Street Journal explains that beginning in July 2010, in a high-profile move that drew the ire of the food industry but won kudos from diners, the Bloomberg administration began requiring restaurants to post cards with letter grades—A, B or C—reflecting the eatery’s performance on sanitary inspections conducted by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Ms. Quinn said she will authorize a series of oversight hearings on a variety of topics related to the inspection system, including whether the grading system is working and whether it has been implemented fairly. The council will also examine whether food trucks and street carts should be required to post grades, mirroring what brick-and-mortar restaurants must do now.

In a statement, Susan Craig, a spokeswoman for the Health Department, noted that surveys show 90% of New Yorkers approve of the grading and inspection program.

"We are delighted by its success. … "The program was not designed to be punitive. The program’s goal remains to provide New Yorkers with critical data when making their dining choices while encouraging restaurants to operate in the cleanest, safest way possible. Our hope is to see only A’s in restaurant windows."

Robert Bookman, an attorney representing hundreds of city restaurants, said, "Folks feel the Health Department is at war with the restaurant industry in the city of New York and that they see it as a cash cow. Bottom line, the grade system is built on a faulty point-system foundation that has only served to triple fines collected, while adding nothing to public food safety."

Mr. Bookman said the restaurant industry opposes the letter-grade system entirely. But if the city continues to keep using letter grades, he said, changes should be made.

Under the current system, if a restaurant does not receive an A, a second, unannounced inspection is conducted about a month later. But that inspection is completely new, and Mr. Bookman argued that it should instead be a re-inspection where the Health Department looks only to see if the problems identified on the first visit were fixed.

That lawyer needs better arguments. There’s lots of research out there about impact and effectiveness of restaurant disclosure systems. Horror stories of filthy restaurants in NYC are publicly available every week.

NYPD and Health Dept. yank illegal food carts from Washington Heights

Posted on by
Reply

DNA info reports New York City police pulled six illegally operating food carts off the streets of Washington Heights earlier this month as part of a sting operation with the Department of Health that was the latest in a series of crackdowns against area vendors.

Police swept Broadway between West 155th and 168th streets, hauling away six carts that sold assorted foods like Mexican tamales and Dominican pastelitos — a dough-wrapped cheese-filled snack — explained Capt. Brian Mullen, commanding officer of the 33rd Precinct.

The sting was part of a year-long operation conducted in conjunction with the Department of Health. Mullen said the DOH has conducted four raids so far this year.

This summer a coalition of community leaders formed a street vendor task force dedicated to finding a solution to decreasing congestion at commercial hubs where illegal vendors compete against retail stores and food vendors licensed by the Department of Health.

Sardi’s free cheese ends after visit from health inspector

Posted on by
1

The New York Times reports (photo from Times, left), that the communal cheese pot — with a knife sticking out and some crackers – was a tradition at bars like the ones in Sardi’s in the theater district.

Now, after a health department inspection that complained about “food not protected from potential source of contamination,” the communal pot is gone.

Other bar-food staples like peanuts and pretzels in little bowls? Sardi’s has taken them off the bar, too.

“It has to do with the health department,” said V. Max Klimavicius, the president of Sardi’s. “It’s gotten to the point that the way they’re applying the health code is so rigid, we can no longer have what we always had. The way it is now with the health department, as they say, a good inspector has to find violations. They come with flashlights and look in every corner.”

“It’s just mind-boggling,” he said. “Nobody’s happy.”

Pat Wolgemuth of West Chester, Pa., said, “How long has it been going on, serving cheese, and nobody got sick?” she asked.

Susan Craig, a health department spokeswoman, said that leaving food on the bar for different parties was a violation. “You shouldn’t have nuts or pretzels or definitely not cheese out at the bar,” she said. “You can be served new appetizers, if you want to call them that, but that can’t be left out” for the next person who comes in.

She denied Mr. Klimavicius’s assertion that inspectors are under pressure to find infractions. “Inspectors are trained to look for things that could put the public health at risk,” she said.

NYC restaurant inspection grades get tossed over typos

Posted on by
1

Spelling and grammar still counts.

Newsday reports that dozens of eateries had all of their health inspection violations tossed because of botched paperwork, automatically giving them an A and saving them thousands in fines, according to an amNewYork analysis of health tribunal hearings between July 2010, when the letter grading system began, and September 2011.

Kevin O’Donoghue, a partner at restaurant law firm Helbraun and Levey, said 90% of the cases he’d seen dismissed were due to an inspector error, like writing the restaurant’s name or address incorrectly.

“The judges will often just say, ‘There’s too much here and I can’t be sure this is the right,’“ said O’Donoghue, who has fought more than 100 inspections and has had a few totally dismissed. “A full dismissal is mostly going to come on the basis of there not being sufficient evidence to sustain the charges.”

Because it takes inspectors months to check all of Gotham’s eateries, more than a third of the restaurants that had their violations dismissed haven’ been re-inspected, leaving them with an A in their windows.

Of the 89 eateries to have their slates wiped clean, the data also shows that:

– Fifteen had failed those disputed inspections with a score of 28 or more.
– While 33 restaurants received an A during their next inspection, at least 23 failed their next time. Three were later closed for unsanitary conditions.
– Nineteen of them failed and fought other inspections during that time.

Judges who presided over the hearings did not return calls for comment. A spokeswoman for the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, which oversees the hearings, declined to comment on them, saying, “each case is unique.” A spokeswoman from the health department, which conducts the inspections, did not return calls for comment.

NYC food-cart guy in $90,000 health violation name game

Posted on by
Reply

The New York Post reports a food-cart vendor repeatedly changed his identity to evade $90,000 in health violations.

Ayman Metwally, 31, would take on a new identity and apply for a new vendor license rather than renewing his old one every two years.

He even altered his Social Security number twice by writing over the digits in pen, adding curves to a “6” to form a sloppy “8,” according to the Health Department.

In 2005, Metwally was hit with 42 health-code violations, including not having a place to wash his hands in the cart. By the time his license was up in 2009, he had added 31 more.

Make (safe) food not war; SoHo restaurant boom closed by health department

Posted on by
Reply

Boom, a SoHo restaurant and music venue, was forced to close down on Friday after New York City health inspectors found evidence of live roaches, flies and plumbing problems.

DNAinfo.com reports the restaurant, which has been open for more than 20 years, racked up 38 health violation points.

The restaurant plans to re-open on Wednesday, manager Marchi Palloni said Tuesday evening.

"Everything is fine now. We just need to make sure that everything is under Health Department laws," he said.

The restaurant, whose slogan is "make food not war," received two other poor health ratings this summer. On Aug. 22, health inspectors found roaches, flies, evidence of rats and "inadequate personal cleanliness." The restaurant received 52 points then.

Several Yelp reviewers described Boom as a hot spot for live music, dancing and people watching, but not dining.

"Come here for the eye candy … not the food," one reviewer wrote.

Fancy food doesn’t mean safe food; Bobo edition

Posted on by
Reply

New York magazine gave Bobo restaurant top marks and called it a "frenetically voguish … triumph of style over substance."

And apparently, safety.

DNAinfo reports health inspectors hit the chic West Village restaurant Bobo with 62 health violation points on Saturday, forcing it to close.

The Health Department found flies, evidence of mice and improperly washed surfaces that come in contact with food at the 181 W. 10th St. restaurant, according to the city’s website.

Bobo received a warning from the Health Department earlier this summer, when it racked up 38 violation points in a June 4 inspection, earning it a C grade.

Inspectors cited the eatery at the time for evidence of mice and cold foods being kept at temperatures that were too high.