By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
EAST VILLAGE — A new rating system by the Health Department has East Village bar and restaurant owners crying foul.
After the landmark dive bar McSorley’s earned a near-perfect score during an inspection by the Health Department last year, the no-frills pub got slapped with seven violations following a July visit under the city’s new scoring method.
McSorley’s rating added up to a total of 38, up a whopping 36 points from last year's score. If the 156-year-old bar fails to pass future inspections, they face the threat of closure.
The list of infractions for McSorley’s included the presence of “filth flies” in food and/or non-food areas; eating, drinking or tobacco use in a food preparation area; and the lack of an appropriate thermometer to take the temperature of potentially hazardous foods during cooking.
“You can’t argue with them, because you’re never right,” said McSorley’s manager Steven “Pepe” Zwaryczuk, explaining that the bar was cited for a cigarette butt in the basement, which is located a few feet from where patrons smoke in front of the bar.
“Hopefully everything will be in order the next time they come around,” said Zwaryczuk, adding that McSorley’s has a veteran staff that takes great care of the bar, and that exterminators visit the space every week to make sure it’s kept vermin-free.
The new rating system will eventually award all businesses letter grades based on the points received, and anything below a “B” will be counted as a failing grade.
The new system is also claiming other high-profile victims across the nightlife-rich East Village, with a host of swanky cocktail lounges getting hit with dreadful grades in recent months.
A couple avenues east of McSorley’s on Seventh Street, the haute cocktail bar/restaurant the Bourgeois Pig received a score of 42 following a June inspection citing evidence of mice and insects, food not protected from potential contamination, and a lack of garbage receptacles.
“It’s great that they have a rating system, but it’s sad that the public puts so much stock in this system that has so many nuances,” said Aaron DeMoss, the restaurant’s general manager, of how some infractions get lumped into broader violation categories that do not provide specifics.
For instance, he explained that the inspector of the Bourgeois Pig’s much-hyped speakeasy-style sister bar Cienfuegos on Avenue A, which received a score of 61, counted individual fruit flies during a June visit and gave the bar a point for each insect observed.
“It’s so much easier for them to say they got a bad score,” DeMoss said, “instead of they got a bad score — why?”
“They can write up anybody,” Zwaryczuk added. “They can write up a brand-new place that hasn’t been opened yet. It’s very easy.”
