March 5, 2007
Rats, Closings and Future of Garbage Disposal
As more restaurants are being closed as the city's health department tries to improve its inspection procedures, questions remain.
First: As many of rodent problems are due to garbage pickup issues, will the city allow commercial businesses to have garbage disposals? Though residents are now allowed to have garbage disposals (thanks to Mayor Giuliani), business still aren't. The NY Sun reports that restaurant groups, like the National Restaurant Association and the Latino Restaurant Association, believe that many problems could be "mitigated," if not solved outright with disposals. But the NY Department of Environmental Protection has been against commercial garbage disposals, because "it would increase the amount of nitrogen in the sewer system and become an environmental hazard."
Another question is how many more restaurants will be closed by the Health Department? Slice has a photograph of the sign outside of John's on Bleecker Street, which was closed last week: "It seems that after 70 YEARS in business they have decided that we need a sink CLOSER TO the Pizza making area, have PROPER lids on our RESTROOM GARBAGE CANS, seal airtight, every possible crack and hole in our 150 year old basement.... and MOST IMPORTANTLY keep our basement door closed...." Pizza lovers are outraged, and we imagine tourists were clutching their cameras in disappointment.
Our question is: Given that the city is very slow to respond to rodent problems - and many rodent experts admit you can't completely get rid of rats - what are restaurants to do? We guess all future restaurants will have to have a hefty "getting-rid-of-rodents" line item in the budget.
And how many school cafeterias will be closed? We imagine there are some health code violation there!
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Heaven forbid that John's Pizza actually have sanitary conditions and, you know, follow the law. The world's smallest violin player is standing outside on Bleecker St. right now.
I was reading about what happened at John's this weekend. It really sounds like the city is trying to gloss over it's incompetence by targeting everyone whether deserved or not. It sounds to me like they are catching up innocent establishments in their dragnets and are going to cause a lot of damage to establishments that don't deserve it.
Same thing happened to Patsy's on 118th and 1st last week. Also a "sink" issue. The place was closed on Thursday by the BoH, the owner appealed on Friday and won (!) but they couldn't reinspect for reopening until Monday, so they were shut all weekend. "Boo" on the city! Anytime the public suffers because of the city's own incompentence and corruption (see "KFC") it's truly a travesty.
Heaven forbid that John's Pizza actually have sanitary conditions and, you know, follow the law. The world's smallest violin player is standing outside on Bleecker St. right now.
There are health code violations and then there are rats running through a store. Having a sink a certain number of feet of a food prep area and lids on bathroom garbages goes on the "New York City/State has a dire need to over-regulate everything" list. There's "rat feces in the pepperoni" and "improper and unsanitary storage" violations and then there's the "rules we have to fuck you when we feel like it and need to look like we're doing something" type of violations.
Tell me what, exactly, a bathroom garbage can lid has to do with sanitary food prep conditions?
Hopefully they'll close down Rao's while they're on the UES.
NYC needs a modern trash disposal system. Right now, as everyone knows, we just pile up our black plastic trash bags on the sidewalk. In Paris, every building has heavy plastic bins on wheels with sealing lids that are designed to be picked up by the garbage trucks. Trash is kept sealed and off the street and impervious to rats. This would make a huge difference.
hey SP move to paris
waaa waaa... we have to install a sink... waaaa!!!! we have to get a lid on our garbage cans!!!.... waaaaaa waaaaaa.... we have to spackle a hole waaaaaaaaaa!!@!$#@!$#
Parisians pay more taxes for luxury items such as sealed trash. If we want these things, we have to pay for them, which we aren't willing to do. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Yeah right public school cafs will be shut down. Govt doesnt attack govt.
los angeles also has automated trash pickups, almost identical to the ones described as being used in paris. but here, there are unions to protect the jobs of garbagemen, not to mention that traffic couldn't handle being further impeded not just by double parked vehicles but trashcans that must, by necessity, be placed further out into the street than the vehicles so that the garbage trucks can access them. it's just not a simple issue any way you look at it.
I hope they open soon.
Lids on garbage cans in the bathroom is an easy fix. It's more sanitary. But do they need to close down for a week while someone runs to KMart and gets a garbage can?