A letter grade awaits Biu Bella Caffe after its owner filed a complaint against the Department of Health saying that the inspection was conducted by a health inspector who acted unprofessionally. Forum Newsgroup photo by Luis Gronda.
The owner of a Forest Hills restaurant has filed a complaint with the city Department of Health (DOH) over what she claims are untrue violations and an inspector who acted inappropriately while conducting the inspection.
Back on Thursday, July 12, The Biu Bella Caffé, located at 107-02 Queens Boulevard, was cited for 61 points in 9 separate health violations and was closed down temporarily by the DOH after that inspection.
According to DOH’s website, among the violations the restaurant was cited for were live roaches and filth flies found in the restaurant’s food area, as well as raw and uncooked food that wasn’t refrigerated properly, and the use of tobacco in the food storage and dishwashing areas.
But Sandra M., the owner of the café who declined to give her full name because of fear of retribution from the DOH, is fighting the inspection that was conducted in early July because she said that the inspector did not act properly during the inspection.
According to Sandra, who has owned the restaurant for a little over one year, there were four main complaints that she had about how that test was done: the inspector did not show a badge indicating that he or she is from the DOH, the inspector did not have a DOH uniform on during that inspection, the person started the inspection itself without informing the restaurant’s owner, and the inspector would yell out whenever a roach or fly was seen in the establish- ment scaring the customers that were eating, Sandra said.
She contends that these are all violations of how the inspection procedure that the DOH follows.
Although there is not much information available on their website about procedure, details that were listed on the website do not at all reflect what happened during the inspection at Biu Bella according to Sandra.
According to a guide for food service operators that can be seen on nyc.gov, among what the inspector at the end of the survey is supposed to do is “Review the results of the sanitary inspection with the operator, explain violations and suggest ways to correct them and improve food safety.”
Sandra said that did not happen. Instead, she said, the inspector only asked her to sign the paper saying that the inspection took place and did not explain the violations and suggest how to correct the errors. The reason, she said, was that the inspector said that it was past the time she was supposed to finish her workday and was in a hurry to leave.
“She said she didn’t want to ‘waste time’ with me anymore,” Sandra said.
The restaurant owner also disagreed with many of the violations given to the café during that day. Sandra said she received penalties for having grease all over the floor near the kitchen area, but she said the grease was isolated to a very small portion of that area and the entire floor wasn’t covered.
She admitted that while there were roaches found in the kitchen area, the bugs were not near any food or food items.
Because of the amount of violations found during the July 12 inspection, the establishment was ordered to close its doors until it improved on many of the infractions found on that day.
There were two more inspections conducted by the DOH after that date, one on July 18, which yielded 24 violation points and the next one on July 23, which only found 4 violation points. Although many of the infractions in the original inquiry were not found in the last two checkups, the café was also cited for roaches in the July 18 inspection.
The score on the most recent test allowed the restaurant to reopen on July 24, almost two weeks after it was ordered closed.
A DOH spokesperson declined to speak about the specifics of her complaint, only saying that the department has her complaint on file and that every restaurant owner has the right to protest an inspection after it is completed.
While Sandra waits to hear from the DOH regarding her complaint, the café has a “Grade Pending” sign posted near its entrance, as it is required by the DOH when an establishment launches a complaint against a department inspection test.
She said that she expects to get another test of the restaurant sometime within the next two weeks in order to get a letter grade. It is not known when the new inspection will take place as the tests are always done without prior announcement.
By Luis Gronda
