Rats! The DOH Are Here!
Travel Blog • David Farley • 03.19.09 | 11:58 AM ET
Photo by The guys at the sushi restaurant across the street from my apartment in New York’s West Village were always friendly. Except for one time about a year ago when I stopped in at lunch to pick up a take-out order. There was only one other person in the restaurant—a guy typing away at a small laptop—but the two employees were short with me, acting as though the place was packed. As I tossed out requests—extra wasabi, for example—the sushi chef nervously nodded back in that officious anything-you-want manner as if I had been pointing a semi-automatic at his family. Then I noticed what was printed on the back of the jacket of the other customer: Department of Health (DOH).
No wonder they were nervous. Ever since February 2007 when a cadre of rats were videotaped (and broadcast on national TV) sauntering around a Taco Bell (just a few blocks away from the sushi place, by the way), the DOH has been on full alert. After the rat coup, the department has been a constant thorn in the side of restaurants—or a great protector of diners, depending on how you look at it. There are 25,000 restaurants in New York City and last year 9,300 of them failed their inspections; over 1,000 of them were so vile, they were shuttered immediately.
And the DOH doesn’t plan to slow down. It’s muscling into bars now. The bartender of a local drinking spot where I sometimes bring my dog told me last week that the DOH recently gave them a warning about having pets in the bar. The bartender was perplexed since they didn’t serve food. The DOH response was that the bar has ice and limes on hand and that was enough (New York just got even less friendly to dogs).
Now comes word that starting in 2010, the DOH is going to institute a grading system, not unlike the one in Los Angeles, where restaurants have to prominently display their letter grade in the front of the restaurant. As for that sushi place, I noticed the infamous yellow 8x10 piece of paper stuck on the window the next day and the place was closed. The place reopened, but a few weeks after that, it was shuttered (apparently for good).