Both Mayor Bloomberg and the estimable William Tigertt weighed in on the whole rat business yesterday. For his part, Mayor Bloomberg spoke about the state of affairs at the Department of Heath, focusing less on the rats specifically and more on how the Department of Health has performed of the last 12 months. Turns out inspection-related closures are up a whopping 99% for the first two months of the year, as compared to the same period a year ago (March 2007 data is not yet available). But the question here has to be, if inspector diligence has just about doubled year-over-year, and the KFC rat infestation is still possible, should we worry?
Tigertt's opinion, which is really more of a rant, bless him, is, let's move on. "Maybe there wouldn’t be so much rat fallout if you and every other news outlet hadn’t been beating this thing to death. I mean this is about as constructive as the once a year trawling of Department of Health website for infractions at Jean George and whatever tony places that didn’t get a perfect score."
He continues, "The rats are cute and all, and places with infestations should be closed but putting the DOH on the warpath is bad news for EVERYONE." No one could agree with this more than the ownership of John's, of course, where a DOH example was made by shutting the place down for a slew of seemingly minor infractions. So, provided the DOH ensures that another Taco Bell doesn't happen, which they will, perhaps it is time to move on. The more we dwell on the DOH issues, the less we want to eat.
· Mike Dishes Dirt: Eatery Closures Soar [NYP]
· The Shutter: Special Rat Fallout Edition [~E~]
Data courtesy of NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
