Most people, Milwaukee Ald. Michael Murphy points out, judge restaurants by their food, service and prices and assume that government is taking care of things such as cleanliness.
Unfortunately, that assumption can be risky in light of a Journal Sentinel review of city records showing more than one-third of city restaurants were cited last year by the Milwaukee Health Department for at least one critical health code violation (www.jsonline.com/744060). That disclosure by investigative reporter Ellen Gabler should make people in City Hall and in the restaurant business realize something is very wrong and needs fixing.
Murphy, who once worked for a restaurant, realizes, as we do, that the restaurant business is very labor-intensive and that even the best-run places and their most trusted, conscientious employees can have lapses. Given that Milwaukee has 1,650 restaurants and only 16 field inspectors, we believe the Health Department is doing the best job it can.
But the "critical violations" cited by health inspectors are a serious matter. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, these are the types of violations that put patrons at risk of getting sick. And since 37% of the city's restaurants were cited for such violations, more scrutiny is needed.
Milwaukee typically inspects restaurants once a year, the minimum required by the state. Federal guidelines suggest three inspections a year, and some cities try to do four. Until the early '90s, Milwaukee did two to three a year, but that's no longer possible because budget cuts have reduced the number of inspectors, officials say. With money tight, hiring more help isn't going to be easy. While also faced with budget constraints, West Allis Health Commissioner Terry Brandenburg says his department has been able to inspect about 20% of the eating places in West Allis and West Milwaukee at least twice a year by tying the number of inspections to such things as a restaurant's volume and the consequent level of public risk - a sensible approach.
The Board concludes that inspections need to be done more frequently.
Where will the money come from to fund these inspections? The Board offers no solutions.
Maybe Mayor Tom Barrett can put in place a "Clean Restaurant" fee. He could tack it on to customers' food bills.
I haven't recovered from the disturbing revelation that 37 percent of Milwaukee's restaurants were cited for serious health violations last year.
On the bright side, Milwaukee doesn't have a monopoly on restaurant violations.
A popular Florida fast food restaurant's storage policy for hamburger buns and cups is about as gross as it gets.
SANFORD, Fla. -- Eyewitness News discovered a popular Sanford fast food restaurant that's accused of storing food on the floor inside the men's restroom. The food that was left on the floor in the restroom was just one of several critical violations health inspectors found at a Checkers location in Sanford.
Employees at the Checkers store on South French Avenue at West 15th Street apparently decided it was okay to store buns for their hamburgers inside a not-so-clean men's room.
Tuesday, it appeared they had changed the policy, but not before racking up a dozen health code violations.
"The bread was stacked sky high to the ceiling, plus it was only about 12 inches from the men's commode," said former customer Willie Jones.
Checker's goes through a lot of hamburger buns at its drive-thru restaurants. It's hard to even think about what might happen to those buns in a tiny, smelly and dirty bathroom. One customer told Eyewitness News he didn't like the manager's reaction to his complaint about the bread box-bathroom stall combination.
"'You got the bread in the men's restroom.' She got angry with me. She got T'd off and she locked the door," Jones said.
Health officials didn't settle for that solution, forcing the store to throw away all of it. Unfortunately, they don't know how long the Sanford Checkers kept both bread and cups in a bathroom that was quickly cleaned as Eyewitness News arrived Tuesday. An employee denied the bathroom-food storage system.
"Were you guys storing bread in there?" WFTV reporter Steve Barrett asked.
"No sir," the employee replied.
That employee and the bread delivery man seemed perplexed about where the bread should go Tuesday as an Eyewitness News crew looked on. They finally took it inside the kitchen.
"Do you ever see them put the bread you bring in the bathroom?" Barrett asked the delivery man.
"No comment," he said.
Watch the video.
The bread delivery guy takes the buns right to the bathroom!
What's so odd about this is that obviously the men's room was routinely being used as a place to store food.
I assume that on a daily basis male customers use the restaurant's men's room.
Why didn't anyone complain sooner?
Are most men not troubled by hamburger buns being kept in the bathroom?
A man who is not grossed out by that is probably a man who uses the bathroom and doesn't wash his hands afterwards.
I'm sickened at the restaurant's food storage policy and I'm disgusted by all the slobs who saw the food in the bathroom and didn't care.
However, there's a squirrel in Finland that I think is in dire need of some discipline.
I shouldn't really blame the squirrel. It's not the problem. There's a shop owner that needs some supervision.
HELSINKI (Reuters) -- A Finnish squirrel with a sweet tooth heads to a Finnish grocery shop at least twice a day to steal "Kinder Surprise" chocolate-shelled eggs.
"I named it the Kinder-squirrel, after the treats. It always goes after them, other sweets do not seem to interest it as much," the manager of the store in Jyvaskyla, central Finland, told Reuters.
The confectionary, which is intended for children, has a toy inside.
"It removes the foil carefully, eats the chocolate and leaves the store with the toy," Irene Lindroos said.
Unfortunately, the bushy-tailed thief does not clean up after itself, but leaves the wrappers behind, she added.
Is this supposed to be cute?
I don't see it.
A squirrel that steals candy isn't talented, like Twiggy the water-skiing squirrel. It's just being a squirrel, doing what rodents do.
I don't think it's cute that a squirrel has access to the treats in a store. It's a rodent rummaging around candy that people buy and eat!
TMJ4 should send Courtny Gerrish to Jyvaskyla for a dirty dining segment. This store must have some health code violations. Where there's a squirrel, there's squirrel droppings.
How does this squirrel get to the candy anyway?
Why doesn't the owner put a stop to it?
Instead, she gives the rodent a name and allows Kinder-squirrel to steal chocolate twice a day.
Yes, she's getting a lot of free advertising thanks to the chocoholic squirrel becoming a global news story, but it's advertising to stay away from her store.
How many stores in the U.S. have squirrels stopping by twice a day to pick up some chocolate with the blessing of the owner?
None, I hope.
A squirrel crawling around candy that's for sale? No thanks.
