Vacancies, vermin, death and disease: L.A.’s restaurant inspectors are in crisis
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Sunday, March 17. I’m Andrew J. Campa and Happy St. Patrick’s Day 🍀. Here’s what you need to know today:
- A colleague’s suicide exposes a crisis among L.A.’s restaurant inspectors.
- The L.A. Marathon is here. Here are the road closures to avoid.
- Two Orange school board conservatives ousted by recalls.
- And here’s today’s e-newspaper.
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Los Angeles County health inspectors stuck in a kitchen nightmare
In an early season of the hit show “Kitchen Nightmares,” renowned, loud and, at times, over-the-top chef Gordon Ramsey visited a health-conscious eatery in Hollywood.
He was served entrees that are stale and tasteless, while the owner is aloof and the kitchen staff is uninterested. Then Ramsey finds rotten vegetables, moldy proteins, grass growing from the ceiling and a variety of meats thawing in the same containers when he perused the kitchen.
“If a health inspector would have witnessed what I witnessed just in one of the fridges, bang, game over,” Ramsey told the restaurant staff, demanding that they clean the shop.
He pasted a handmade letter “F” over the “A” grade given at one time by inspectors.
That episode was shot over a decade ago.
But there is a 2024 crisis within the ranks of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health food inspectors.
Inspections are dramatically down, morale is low, staff vacancy rates are high. Workers were left reeling last month with the workplace suicide of a 55-year-old health inspector. Others report finding kitchens infested with vermin made rampant by fewer inspections, The Times’ Rebecca Ellis reported.
Sobering numbers
There are roughly 18,000 “high-risk” food facilities in the county that the health department should have been inspected three times last year, but fewer that 2% were, internal county records reviewed by Rebecca showed. Exactly 5,365 were never inspected at all.
In 2019, inspectors visited nearly 12,000 of the riskier food facilities three times, the county said.
The Westin Bonaventure’s main kitchen hadn’t been inspected for eight months when an outbreak of Shigella, a bacterium that can spread through infected food, hit late last August.
More than 30 people were infected, with four guests hospitalized and one told by her doctor her kidneys were shutting down.
Though it’s impossible to say more inspections could have prevented the outbreak, health experts say inspections serve a critical role in preventing such occurrences.
Inspections aren’t ramping up, however, in large part because of the critically low number of inspectors.
Although the county has a budget for 244 field inspectors, it has only 69 positions filled, with 27 inspectors in training. The “industry-wide lack of qualified applicants” has crippled public health goals, a department spokesperson said.
The department also blamed the COVID-19 pandemic, which overburdened health departments nationwide with employees now asked to enforce new safety protocols. Many resigned.
Where the wild things are
When inspectors returned to the Westin Bonaventure in September, they found eight live German cockroaches, one dead American cockroach and roughly 20 fruit flies.
Michael Matibag, a six-year employee of the health department, said he’s struggled to get to high-risk restaurants even once a year.
When he made it to the kitchen of a Korean gastropub in La Verne in October, he said rats had thrived in his year-long absence.
“I’m talking like 50 pieces of individual rat feces,” said Matibag, who said that he wanted to see his division better run. “Fifty pieces of rodent dropping isn’t going to happen overnight.”
A death in the family
On Feb. 13, a swarm of furious employees confronted Barbara Ferrer, director of the public health department, after a longtime inspector, Heather Hughes, took her own life at her office building.
Employees raised long-standing concerns. Trust in management had eroded. One employee said she’d filed 34 grievances. Another said they felt like a damaged “zombie.”
“We’re extremely stressed out. We feel, to be honest with you, very abused and mistreated,” one employee said.
For more on the trials faced by county inspectors, please click here.
The week’s biggest stories
Crime and Courts
- Sophisticated “burglary tourists” fly from South America to rob wealthy homes, LAPD says.
- Billionaire L.A. family claims racism at elite Westside country club.
- Uncle who bludgeoned two nephews to death found guilty of murder.
Politics and government
- One far-right leader ousted. Another barely hangs on. Is Shasta rejecting MAGA politics?
- Crescenta Valley councilman caught peeing on door outside a bar resigns.
- Why is Haiti so chaotic? Leaders used street gangs to gain power. Then the gangs got stronger.
- East Oakland native brought in community organizations and local government to clean up a street.
Arts, music and food
- “Where are you really from?” A Latino landmark disrupts Pasadena Playhouse’s 100-year history.
- Kanye West barely performs in headlining set at Rolling Loud.
- Doors will reopen at beloved Café Tropical this weekend.
Sports
- Dodgers’ minor league team unwittingly rebrands with a NSFW name.
- Aaron Donald retires: Rams superstar left his indelible mark on the NFL, quarterbacks.
- Amid board squabbles, Angel City seeking new owner for controlling stake of franchise.
Environmental issues and weather
- Satellite photos show California turning green and snowy after winter storms.
- Presence of parasite that’s deadly for dogs now confirmed in California: Signs to watch for.
- California unlikely to meet landmark goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
More big stories
- A United Airlines plane’s external panel discovered missing after Oregon flight.
- Larry H. Parker, auto accident and personal injury attorney, dies at 75.
- Winner of the $1.765-billion Powerball has been revealed.
- Medieval Times union efforts collapse as American Guild of Variety Artists pulls support.
- This Cal State immigration clinic provides free legal advice. It might come to a ‘full stop.’
- Realtors agree to change commission rules in a deal that could reduce costs for consumers.
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Column One
Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and long-form journalism. Here’s a great piece from this week:
To Steven Spiegel, they were all low-ball offers for the LeBron James rookie card he and his brother Alan bought in 2014 — $70,000, $80,000, $90,000. No matter that they’d purchased it for $35,000. Steven had a strong conviction that it was a “million-dollar card.” Before the card was set to be auctioned off, however, the listing was pulled by Goldin Auctions, a New Jersey-based powerhouse in the world of sports memorabilia. According to the Spiegels’ complaint, just after the card was pulled from the auction, they spoke by telephone with an executive from Upper Deck, the Exquisite Collection manufacturer, who told them: Somebody has a “vendetta against you.”
More great reads
- Mystery surrounds sudden increase in steelhead trout deaths near California water pumps.
- Investors bought a historic Echo Park home. Sisters who have lived there since childhood are fighting to stay.
- Anthony Hopkins on Holocaust drama “One Life”: “This can happen again at any moment.”
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.
For your weekend
Going out
- 📵 When the world gets too hectic, here are 18 ways to disconnect and unwind.
- 🦋 Walk among beautiful butterflies on opening day of the Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum, starting at 9:30 a.m.
- ☘️ St. Patrick’s Day discounts on pints of Irish beer and whiskey, corn beef and cabbage are available at the Original Farmers Market, staring at 10 am.
- 🚲 Enjoy guided bike rides through Reseda on the protected lanes at the CicLaVia event, starting at 1 p.m.
- 🎶 The final day of the Rolling Loud Hip Hop Festival kicks off at Sofi Stadium, starting at 1 p.m.
Staying in
- ☘️ Lindsay Lohan wishes for true love, but what she thinks she wants might not be what’s best for her in “Irish Wish” on Netflix.
- 🏀 March Madness gets underway with the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball selection show on CBS, starting at 3 p.m.
- 👰 How are some of television’s most chaotic marriages going? Find out on “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?” on TLC at 8 p.m.
- 🧑🍳 On St. Patrick’s Day, here is famed Irish chef Kevin Dundon’s Irish lamb stew recipe.
- ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.
L.A. Affairs
Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.
I was a teenager getting ready to attend Sequoia Junior High School in Reseda in 1960. My father heard that there was a new drama teacher at the school named Mr. C who was going to put on his first play. Four years later, we were wed. For 57 years, I have loved being married to Robert Carrelli — he’s now 93 — and I’m extremely happy Mr. C made the daring decision to marry his 18-year-old babysitter on March 17, 1967.
Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Stephanie Chavez, deputy metro editor
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