By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
BATTERY PARK CITY — The popular SouthWest NY restaurant won top marks on its latest health inspection, one month after racking up more violations than any other eatery in Battery Park City.
In November, city inspectors slammed the restaurant with 70 violation points, citing evidence of mice, roaches and flies, along with hazardous food preparation methods.
But during a follow-up inspection Wednesday, the city found only minor violations totaling 13 points and awarded SouthWest an A on the spot, said Richard Cohn, co-owner of the restaurant.
After the November inspection, the World Financial Center restaurant redoubled its efforts to keep the place clean and implemented a more aggressive extermination plan, Cohn said.
Abraham Merchant, another owner, sent a note to Battery Park City residents Wednesday announcing the grade.
"SouthWest NY places the highest priority on maintaining a clean, safe and sanitary restaurant, and considered the prior disputed inspection an anomaly and rife with errors," said Merchant, whose restaurant group also runs Steamers Landing and Pound & Pence.
Cohn pointed out that aside from the November inspection, the restaurant had previously had a strong health record. Cohn said he is in the process of appealing the results of the 70-point inspection, and he expects to have a hearing in January.
The city launched a new restaurant grading system earlier this year and gives all restaurants a chance to appeal before officially branding them with a low grade.
However, the city posts the results of all the inspections online, even if they are under appeal, which Cohn said is "wrong and inherently unfair."
"The Department of Health should reconsider its policy," Cohn said, "which in essence publicly convicts a restaurant before conducting a trial, and should only post violations which have been sustained."
