On April 2, the city Department of Health & Mental Hygiene closed down The Little Owl, a popular West Village restaurant, because of mice infestation. No one was known to have fallen sick. (It’s since reopened.)
On April 3, a crane collapsed at a No. 7 subway extension construction site, killing a workman — following a January visit by a Department of Buildings inspector who failed to check the boom and hoist because the crane was in use. Last week, the hoist broke, resulting in the fatal accident.
What’s wrong with this picture? It reflects City Hall’s inexplicable persecution of restaurants at the expense of fairness or common sense, while it neglects protecting the public from truly dangerous conditions at building sites.
I’ve pointed out in these pages that, relative to the number of sites, the city deploys 19 times more inspectors for restaurants compared with buildings. Yet the risk of getting sick from a meal is minute, while the dangers posed by buildings, construction sites and elevators are too well known to those who’ve lost loved ones in recent calamities.
The imbalance here isn’t just in the number of inspectors, but in their rigor. Building inspectors have a history of winking at dangerous conditions — while restaurant owners know too well they’ll be cut no slack.
The killer crane couldn’t be fully checked out because it was running when the inspector arrived, the DOB said. Huh: Eatery inspectors routinely barge in at the height of service and bring places to a standstill.
My restaurant-world sources won’t let their names be used for obvious reasons, much as they’d like to go public with the damage caused to their low-margin, high-risk businesses by DOH functionaries striving to assess fines to meet quotas.
But, having written about restaurants for many years and listened to owners’ and chefs’ accounts, I can attest to the destructive impact of the DOH blitz in the past few years.
At a Village bistro in mid-December, one of the busiest times of year, an inspector not only forced the kitchen to stop work at the height of service, but commandeered a dining room table for himself to do paperwork.
Customers waiting to be seated left; others balked at paying their checks when they couldn’t get food.
Another restaurateur with an impeccable reputation — who’s prided himself for decades on running meticulously clean establishments — has seen his Midtown place invaded again and again by DOH agents determined to nail him on absurd technical grounds after finding no legitimate food-preparation or storage violations.
Clearly, DOB inspectors go at their work with far less zeal than the DOH’s, who are undeterred by work in progress or the prospect of damaging a business or inconveniencing paying customers.
We need more and better building inspectors. We need restaurant inspectors concerned about true health issues rather than about collecting fines.
It’s up to Mayor Bloomberg, who seems indifferent to the recent construction tragedies, to acknowledge his agencies’ twisted priorities — and do something about it.