GREENFIELD — The Board of Health has suspended The Clay Oven’s food service license indefinitely unless the ownership can come up with a solid plan to fix ongoing food safety issues.
The board’s vote was unanimous and they’ll review the case in two months to gauge the restaurant’s progress.
The Clay Oven, at 286 Main St., was previously ordered to close for a week on June 22 after years of poor inspection results. Some of the violations were considered serious “red-critical” violations that could threaten public health. Those incidents and the owners’ repeated failure to address them prompted the suspension, Eichstaedt said.
When the restaurant was allowed to re-open, the Health Department conducted weekly inspections, which have since turned up numerous ongoing serious violations, said Chairman William Doyle Wednesday night, prompting the permit hearing.
Doyle said his main concerns were the owner’s failure to follow basic food safety procedures, including storing raw meat over ready-to-serve produce, ongoing rodent problems, a lack of understanding on how to properly cool food to prevent food-borne illness, and a failure to keep testing strips for, use, or even stock any sort of sanitizer for surfaces and equipment.
“My ultimate point was that this is Food Safety 101, if you will,” Doyle said. “The lack of understanding of proper heating and cooling of chicken — if we don’t have that, then we have a real problem. With the sanitizer, how do you clean if you’re unsure it’s adequate?”
Doyle noted that the board has ordered weekly inspections since June, and the same violations continue to occur each week.
“We’ve been back many times, and it’s not our job to baby sit you,” he said. “It’s up to you to come up with a plan to fix it, and I’m not sure you’ve done that.”
Though a Sept. 9 inspection turned up no “red-critical” food safety violations, a subsequent Sept. 16 inspection did, Eichstaedt said. The restaurant has been voluntarily closed since Monday, pending the outcome of the meeting and due to a drop in business, the owners said.
The owners, Shashi Sharma, Madan Rathore and Swostik Rana Magar, told the board that many of the facilities violations — including replacing a vent fan and repairing flooring damaged by leaking water from air conditioners — had been completed, but Health Director Nicole Zabko said it was the food safety violations, which have continued, that prompted Wednesday’s hearing in the first place.
Sharma said he had proof that a pest control company had been working to control the rodent problem, but Zabko said the issues with food safety and storage need to be addressed despite that to avoid inviting the rodents back once they’re gone.
“You have to assist with that. Having pest control is half the battle. You need to maintain general cleanliness so they aren’t coming back,” she said.
The owners were accompanied by Dr. Eric Nusbaum, the owner of Wheelwright Consultants food safety firm, who Sharma said he contacted to give an opinion of the situation prior to the meeting. That visit occurred Tuesday, he told the board.
Nusbaum said he could be hired to work with the owners to train the restaurant’s entire staff in ServSafe food safety standards and provide consultation on other ways to improve the establishment. The owners have not yet formally contracted his services, he said.
Madan Rathore, one of the partners who said he’s been absent from the establishment for at least a year and a half. He left to open another restaurant in Keene, N.H., that limits his time and relies on the other two to run The Clay Oven.
He described inner turmoil between the partners, noting that Sharma and Rana Magar had been informing him that operations were going smoothly during that time.
“A small business is hard to run without hiring more people, and they do have ServSafe (training), but I don’t know if they are too lazy to do the job?” he said. He noted that the building has a number of spots where mice can get in.
Another restaurant in the same building has not been experiencing those problems, Zabko noted.
The board was having none of it. “The basic issue is one of food safety,” Doyle said. “Raw meat over vegetables — you don’t do that.”
“Someone is going to get very sick,” echoed member Tammy Mosher. “I empathize that it’s a small business. I work in a small doctor’s practice. I understand having someone call out and doing double (shifts), but patients are important. Just by how the food is handled (at the restaurant) tells me that you have a disregard for the public. Because they will get sick.”
Zabko lauded Nusbaum’s expertise in the field, noting that the Health Department refers people to him themselves, but noted he was brought in at the last minute.
She recommended the suspension.
Zabko said previously that food code violations are not uncommon in restaurants and the Health Department tries to work with the owner to fix things, but when issues rise to the level they have and occur with the frequency that they have at Clay Oven, action must be taken.
Zabko said she is unsure when the last time the Health Department had to consider similar action against a restaurant, or completely revoke a food permit, but it has not happened since she arrived on the job in 2005.
Sharma said he previously owned Inkwell News in Greenfield, which he sold in 1996 to pursue other business ventures. He opened The Clay Oven in 2013 because “he liked the town” and wanted to return.
You can reach Tom Relihan at:
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