In this image made from video rats move around inside a KFC-Taco Bell restaurant in Greenwich Village in New York, Friday, Feb. 23, 2007. (AP Photo/Rafael Garcia Jr. via APTN)Okay, this is both incredible, and pretty sickening. Here is the story on CNN:
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Video of a dozen or more rats scurrying around a closed KFC/Taco Bell restaurant in New York City's Greenwich Village early Friday morning prompted shrieks from onlookers and fodder for the morning television talk shows.
The restaurant, on 6th Avenue near New York University, has been cited as recently as December for a number of health code violations, including evidence of rodents and live cockroaches.
KFC and Taco Bell is owned by Yum Brands (Charts) - a publicly held corporation based in Louisville, Ky.
The company said in a written statement that the restaurant was inspected as recently as Thursday and tried to address the problem by doing construction in the basement. Ironically, it said, that work may have temporarily worsened the infestation problem.
"This is completely unacceptable and is an absolute violation of our high standards," the company statement says. "We've talked with the franchisee, who is actively addressing this issue, as is evident by the preventative construction in the basement yesterday that temporarily escalated the situation.
"This store will remain closed until this issue is completely resolved. The health department inspected the restaurant yesterday and we will ask them to return when work is complete to give the restaurant a clean bill of health"
Most Taco Bell restaurants are owned by franchisees.
Public records indicate that the last listed owner on record for this franchise is Matthew Bernardo of Madison, Conn. Calls to Bernardo were not returned.
The same restaurant was cited for evidence of rodents several times in the past three years, among other violations. In its most recent inspection, the restaurant scored a 10 on the city Department of Health's inspection meter. A score of 28 or more indicates that the restaurant poses a public health hazard.
The restaurant's scores have improved from a 16 in 2004 and a 14 in March of 2006.
Still, the Department of Health has cited the restaurant for evidence of rodents and live rodents and insects in each of the past three years.
There are video links of the rats scurrying happily through the empty restaurant on MSNBC, and 2 videos from Yahoo News here and here.
Update: YouTube has got a number of video postings here:
2 comments:
Hey, Eric. My name is Will Bortz and I work for KFC and Taco Bell. Could not agree with you more that what we saw on Friday was unacceptable and alarming. I appreciate your comments and I just wanted to take a minute to let you and your readers know your opinions have been heard and to give you an update.
We agree that the situation at the Greenwich Village restaurant is totally unacceptable and, as you may know, the restaurant has been closed until further notice. Some construction in the building's basement last Thursday temporarily escalated the situation, and we are correcting that. Everyone at KFC and Taco Bell is working hard to take care of the issues at this restaurant.
We appreciate the viewpoint you've shared, and want to assure our customers that we're totally focused on resolving this issue. We have posted some information about this situation and will post future updates here: http://www.tacobell.com/default.asp?sec=press_releases
Thanks.
- Will Bortz
Will.bortz@tacobell.com
Will Bortz: Thank you for your comment. I'm actually surprised that someone from Taco Bell would come on to my own little blog and post a comment on the news story. I saw this story as both disgusting and incredible. Yes, this was an isolated incident. And I guess there was some construction going on that caused the rats to come out into the restaurant. But, like it or not, the CNN story reported that this same restaurant was cited by the health department several times for rodent problems during the past three years. So there was a serious problem with this particular restaurant. It is no wonder that the rodent problem snowballed to the point where the rodents had a complete run of the store that day.
I have to wonder just how many other Taco Bells and KFCs have their own health department problems in this country--and especially in New York? And it is not just Taco Bells and KFCs here--we can also include McDonalds, Wendys, Burger Kings, Jack in the Box, and some of the other fast food franchises?
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