Blame The Filth, Not The City

Posted by Chris Berry on September 24, 2008 in Roanoke Valley

I had not planned to write anything else on the Market building for a while, but there is one nagging point that I feel the need to address. The rodent infestation issue has been covered pretty thoroughly by the Roanoke Times and the local TV stations, and the more we learn from these sources, the more obvious it becomes that we are talking about a serious public health hazard. If you haven’t already seen the photos taken by the health department during the last inspection, they are available here. The thing that I find so hard to believe is that some people continue to suggest that the city should compensate the food court vendors for lost business during the cleanup.

I attended the news conference on Monday hosted by the City Manager and the health department. Anita Wilson of Burger in the Square was also there to speak on behalf of the vendors. Wilson did her best to minimize the problem, and blamed it on sidewalk construction across the street at the old Billy’s Ritz building. Officials from the health department made it abundantly clear that the actual problem was due to failure to store food properly, and failure to maintain basic standards of sanitation. These problems are caused by the vendors, and the City has no responsibility to compensate them for the squalid conditions inside their own stalls.

Maintaining proper standards of sanitation in any food service establishment requires a vigorous program of routine cleaning and maintenance. This becomes even more critical when operating in the kind of cramped quarters that the food court vendors occupy. The kind of floor to ceiling cleaning that is taking place now should be a regular part of that routine. Ms. Burcham has announced that the building will close twice a year for scheduled cleanings from this point forward. The truly nauseating thing we have learned this week is that some of these vendors have occupied the same spaces for nearly 20 years and have never performed this kind of thorough cleaning. Is it any wonder we have a rodent problem?

When asked during the news conference about the compensation issue, Ms, Burcham had an opportunity to quash the discussion once and for all, but she failed to do so. Instead she gave a noncommittal response about the city maintaining the common the areas of the building, and the vendors being responsible for the conditions within their leased spaces. Ms. Wilson, on the other hand, did her best to place the blame on everyone but the vendors, and made it clear that they expected substantial compensation for their losses. I don’t know if Ms. Wilson truly represents the attitudes of all the vendors, but if she does, any sympathy I might have had for their cause in the larger debate over the future of the building is lost.

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14 Comments on Blame The Filth, Not The City

By Jeff St Real on September 24, 2008 at 10:08 am

You know, the more I think about this the more I realize the building as it is currently configured is a lost cause. Some of the vendors are crammed into areas so small that there’s probably not enough room to store the proper refrigeration equipment needed. The plumbing is antiquated. The structure is unsound.

All this “fall cleaning” is a waste of time and money. The rest room upgrade was needed but as it turns out that was a waste of time and money.

The mayor, frankly, now looks foolish after his “When Chico is happy, I’m happy” statement.

This is the perfect opportunity to bulldoze the place. Yes, it’s a historical landmark. Take some nice pictures of it and say goodbye. This city needs to grow a pair and say “this isn’t working anymore, people, so lets cut our losses and start over”. Knock it down. It should have been done in conjunction with the art museum construction (I’m one of the quiet few who think that the new art museum is fantastic and, along with greenway development, one of the best things the city has done in the 13 years I’ve been here).

The “farmers market” is a bit of a farce, too. It’s three guys selling peaches, for crying out loud. Start over, combine the farmer’s market and food court ideas. Bring in a butcher shop (not a guy selling pork from a styrofoam cooler); bring in a seafood shop (not two pieces of dried up tilapia and a deep fryer); bring it a deli rather than just a sub shop; encourage some of the growing number of ethnic grocers around town to move to the market; how about a taqeria?

Maybe we don’t have the population to sustain it, I don’t know. But if we don’t start with something clean, fresh, exciting and new, something we can actually be proud of, instead of the tired old “historic market”, then it’s just going to fade away to an empty shell, anyway.

By Megan on September 24, 2008 at 10:14 am

I must admit that after seeing the photos the health department released I’m a bit disgusted myself. The issue I’m concerned about now is how to keep the building from reaching that point again. Should the businesses that maintain a higher standard of cleanliness be punished along with those that don’t? What about the areas that don’t fall under the responsibility of any of the business owners (several of which were in the health dept. photos)? Whose job is it to see that those areas are properly maintained?
Perhaps the city needs to make it someones job to routinely inspect the building to make sure proper cleanliness is being upheld in all areas. Owners found in violation would have a given time to correct problems or would face fines or even lose their lease if the problem was severe enough.
Since the businesses had varying degrees of violations and some of the violations fall under the city’s areas of responsibility perhaps each one should be assessed seperately and compensation, if any, would be given on a sliding scale.

By Chris Berry on September 24, 2008 at 10:36 am

Megan,
I agree that certain vendors are probably more responsible than others when it comes to contributing to the overall level of filth, but if you read the VDH reports on the individual establishments, none is entirely blameless. I asked this very question at the news conference, and the health department officials were not willing to point fingers at individual vendors. It’s an unfortunate consequence of operating in a common setting that no individual business owner can isolate themselves from the problems caused by their neighbors, but every tenant should have considered this possibility before signing a lease. The city doesn’t have the option of modifying existing leases at this point, but if VDH believes that a small number of vendors are to blame, they can protect the others by refusing to reinstate their permits. As far as the common areas of the building, the city is clearly responsible for their upkeep, but there is no denying that the source of the problem is improper food storage and lack of sanitation in the vendor stalls.

By Megan on September 24, 2008 at 11:08 am

A side note on the fantastic art museum. I truly hope it does wonderfully. Working in the Market Building I’ve had many opportunities to talk to various people who’ve done work on the new building. If the things I’ve heard are true then it is going to have to do amazingly to be anything other than another money pit for the city. $10,000 for one round of window cleaning (not including the outside windows), $3,000+ to change a few light bulbs due to the special equipment needed, 20% of projected income from food sales in an area saturated with restaurants etc etc.

By Chris Berry on September 24, 2008 at 11:14 am

Megan,
The museum may well turn out to be a money pit, but since it isn’t owned by the city, it wont be the city’s problem.

By Matt on September 24, 2008 at 11:15 am

The city is responsible for more than the common areas of the building. Cleanliness aside, they are responsible for the ceiling tiles, walls and floor tiles in the individual booths. A hefty number of Friday’s inspection criticals dealt with holes in the ceilings and walls (in most cases, where the sprinkler systems had been installed). Some of the vendors had nothing more than that and some potential harborage zones in areas that were not easily reached to clean. For these vendors, the problems have been fixed… the downside is that VDH isn’t going to reinstate some and not others. As long as a single vendor location is not within regulation, every other vendor will have to remain closed.

Honestly, the problem is articles/blogs like this that point blame in one direction or another. Both the city (with prior knowledge of a rodent presence and their recent attempt to spin control the situation) and the vendors (no, nothing is perfectly clean, not even where I work(ed) and some don’t give the attention to detail that they should) are equally responsible.

I’m digressing a bit from the actual topic of the article, namely the compensation. In some cases, a vendor was closed due, primarily, to repairs that fell under the city’s responsibility. These vendors should receive some financial compensation based on fixing some basic (non-critical) cleanliness issues in the first day and then having to wait for the city to get around to their repairs. Some of the vendors are, quite literally, in a state of limbo, having nothing else to fix in their booths, with the exception of what the city has stated it is responsible for.

Those are the vendors that do deserve some sympathy in this fiasco. It’s fairly easy to tell who they are by looking through the VDH database on all the past inspections for the vendors. They’re the ones with zero or a small handful of easily remedied criticals (being a few degrees off temperature or having open drink containers). If they’ve already fixed their booths, should they continue to suffer financial losses while waiting for the city to conduct repairs in their booths and other vendors to clean up larger messes?

I agree with Megan that it could be done on a sliding scale based on the nature of the individual VDH reports. If a vendor’s closure was due primarily to areas of city responsibility, then, yes, they should receive some compensation for the closure time. If the majority of the citations were the fault of the vendor, then, obviously, there shouldn’t be compensation…or limited compensation if they fix their issues and have to remain closed while waiting for any city repairs to their locations.

As a bit of a segue, I would like to defend Anita Wilson’s statement about the local construction. That actually came from some of the experts the news agencies have contacted. The combination of cooler weather, the construction at the old Billy’s Ritz and Art Museum causing a forced migration, the multiple openings available in a building this age that hasn’t undergone effective renovations, an available water supply and the scent of food have all been attributed to the mouse problem affecting the building. She wasn’t trying to assign blame to the construction… in all honesty, she was probably just repeating a statement she heard or read during the media coverage.

By Megan on September 24, 2008 at 11:22 am

Chris,
That’s a relief. From the way everyone talked about it, I had gotten the wrong impression.

By Matt on September 24, 2008 at 11:25 am

Now, to go completely off-topic…

While my few comments in your blogs have been a bit on the argumentative side, I do enjoy reading it. I only recently discovered it during the Court Rosen/Market Building Proposal coverage and have gone back and read through some of the blog posts. I just wanted to mention that, regardless of how our views may differ on topics.

So, keep posting good blogs… and I’ll try to be supportive of some of the views from time to time.

By Chris Berry on September 24, 2008 at 11:28 am

Matt,
Thanks for your support and your contributions. I encourage all readers to voice their opinions whether they agree with me or not.

By Megan on September 24, 2008 at 11:40 am

I also enjoy your blog, Chris. And if nothing else good comes from this situation, its gotten me more interested in and vocal about whats happening in Roanoke. Something I plan on continueing even after the Market Building issues are just a memory.
I do hope that you and anyone else interested will come to the meeting about the future of the Market Building on Thursday night. I’d like to see that everyone’s opinion gets heard even if it differs from my own.

By Brian on September 25, 2008 at 7:10 am

I have worked in the market building on and off for 10 years now and I can tell you first hand that mice have always been a problem. In the 10 years I have worked there, there have never been any food borne illnesses reported. The operators know of the problems and (most) of them stay on top of those problems to the best of their ability (without any real help from city hall.)

I have worked in the food service industry for 16 years and can tell you that pests are a common problem in any restaurant, the older the building the worse the vermin will be. That is just a fact.

I think it is pretty silly that the market building has been singled out like this. Every old restaurant downtown has mice and bug problems yet they only see their health inspector twice a year,the violations are written and the owner is given a week to correct the violations (even the critical ones which are reason to shut down any food service operation)No one calls the press or makes a huge public up roar about it. The market building has seen it’s health inspector at the very least once a week for well over a year. Somehow she didn’t find all these violations until now? Highly unlikely.

I would also like to point out that a lot of the photos you saw where the same violations taken from different angles. I am not saying that the health code violations shouldn’t be addressed, but they should have been a addressed along time ago. Are the vendors to blame? Yes, they are very much to blame, just like the city. The city never wanted to spend the money on their own building, and the old health inspector handled many of these issues just like the other buildings downtown were handled. This attitude made a lot of the vendors feel defeated, like they were fighting a losing battle. I know first hand that only 3 of the food vendors make enough money to really pay for any upgrades and repairs themselves. The rest are living hand to mouth.

I guess the only other point I’d like to make is that every single kitchen in the market building is an open kitchen, as in the customers can look inside see the conditions, see the people making their food and make the choice to order or not.Some of you have been eating there for as long as I have worked there. Do you really believe you can make lunch for 600 to 1000 people a day, 6 days a week without there being wear and tear on your operation? It is not until the MEDIA puts in their 2 (worthless) cents on the matter that everyone acts disgusted,betrayed and outraged. If you are so worried about your safety make your own lunch and put it in a brown paper bag, and try not to be a slave to TVs and newspapers while you are at it.

By Chris Berry on September 25, 2008 at 7:30 am

Brian,
I agree with you that the Market Building has probably been unfairly singled out for media scrutiny. Unsanitary conditions exist in other food service establishments throughout the valley. To anyone who bothered to look for themselves over the years, it is obvious that these problems did not occur overnight. I think there are two main issues here that have led to the extra media attention in this case. The first was the attempt to cover up the problem on the part of the city manager, and the second is that VDH has obviously been looking the other way for a very long time. The sad truth is that this shutdown should probably have occurred years ago.

By Brian on September 26, 2008 at 7:13 am

What I am having trouble understanding is why are you pushing so hard for a shutdown. A shutdown is not what anyone wants and honestly looks bad not only for the vendors, and their employees but for the city too. I guess we could tear it down and build another ugly space ship building that doesn’t match any of the other architecture downtown , but I really don’t believe the citizens want that either. A shut down wouldn’t even be an issue if the “managers” the city hired were more willing to do their JOB. When I first got a job in the building the current manager (forgive me for not recalling her name it was 11 years ago) had her office in the building and did daily inspections of each business, food and retail. When there was a problem it was addressed as soon as feasible, and there was never any problems with health or safety inspectors. These days the vendors do not see the market building manager even half as much as they see the health inspector.

What the hell does Brian Brown do all day?? Does he have another (more important) job?
Is he off playing golf? does he have some sort of second secret life? Who knows. Why hasn’t he been fired yet? Who knows that either. All I know is if I only went to work half of the week and didn’t do any cooking while I was there I would be fired.

I said it before and I will say it again here, this city is run by selfish,greedy dotards.

Anyways, you have invited me to let you know if you are completely full of shit, and in this case I would have to say you are.

By Chris Berry on September 26, 2008 at 7:52 am

Brian,
When you went to work in the market building 11 years ago it was managed by a private company that had a 20 year lease agreement with the city. Since that agreement expired, the building has been managed by the city because no other private company would take the job. Brian Brown is not the market building manager. He is the Economic Development Administrator for the city, and as such he has a wide variety of responsibilities that extend far beyond inspecting vendor stalls.

Please feel free to share your thoughts. Without your comments, I'm just some guy talking to myself. Let me know if I'm right, wrong, or completely full of sh*t.