Who’s the Rat Here?

New York’s health department admitted that a report of a rat in a Taco Bell restaurant in January — a full month before the rat infestation at the restaurant was captured on video by a TV camera – had been ignored.

The health inspector responsible for the location resigned but would have been fired if she hadn’t quit, according to a department of health spokesman.

The city issued two reports seeking to explain how the KFC/Taco Bell in Greenwich Village earned a passing grade following a February inspection. The reports cited systemic failures and a health department inspector’s “lack of diligence.”

A report from the health department found the city’s lack of an “adequate mechanism” to respond to repeated restaurant complaints and for focusing too heavily on signs of rodent activity rather than conditions that foster infestations.

The report from the department of investigation “found a disturbing lack of diligence on the part of the public health sanitarian who inspected the restaurant as well as a breakdown in the supervision of the inspector.” The department said the inspector, Cemone Thomas, “underreported the rodent-related findings and failed to take proper action … which constituted a ’gross dereliction’ of her duties.”

On Feb. 22, 2007, Thomas documented only 87 rat droppings and didn’t cite an additional 20, which would have caused the restaurant to fail the inspection and could have forced it to close immediately, the department said. The next day, video shot through the restaurant window of rats scampering throughout the eatery before it would have opened for the day surfaced. The city dispatched a second inspector, who ordered the place closed.

The department said evidence in the case suggested that Thomas simply couldn’t be bothered to do a more comprehensive report because she might have been trying to “avoid the additional time it would have taken for further enforcement steps.”

A Department of Health spokesman said Thomas was a “superb inspector who made a very serious mistake.” In response to the KFC/Taco Bell fiasco, the spokesman said “a lot of things are going to change.”

Yum Brands Inc. (Louisville, Ky.), the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, said it had asked a leading rat expert to review company standards at its New York outlets. The company apologized for the rats and said it was working to ensure another infestation didn’t happen again.