A popular Astoria barbecue joint has been shuttered after a standoff with the city Health Department.
The owner of the Strand Smokehouse elected to go rogue, choosing to allow his three businesses to be shuttered rather than submit to a city inspection.
Owner Tommy Vasilis said he was angry after inspectors showed up last summer at his Bakeway shop, which is located next to the Smokehouse. The inspector insisted on reviewing both establishments,
Vasilis said, even through Bakeway had been inspected two weeks earlier.
"I told them to inspect Smokehouse but not the bakery," he told the Daily News. "I thought that was double dipping."
Vasilis said the agency has punished him by shutting down all three of his eateries and putting 50 people out of work. A second Bakeway, on 30th Ave., is also closed.
He said he paid the $600 fine and is ready for an inspection later this month.
It wasn’t the first showdown, said Health Department officials, noting that inspectors had a previous problem gaining access to the Broadway hotspot.
“After receiving both a warning and a violation for obstructing a previous inspection, the permit for The Strand Smoke House was temporarily suspended because its owner obstructed Health Department inspectors from completing an inspection a second time,” the agency said in a statement.
12 comments:
Are city inspectors not allowed to show up more than once? Does passing an inspection mean you can do whatever you want for the next year? What kind of logic is that? What a scumbag.
Where there's smoke, there's fire.
Come on now. The owner is going to SHUT down 3 businesses because he doesnt want to get inspected????? that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. He's probably hiding something. Who knows what. But to shutter a business and stop a cashflow from 3 businesses..... I dont know. I'd get some other inspectors in there.
He might as well sit in front of his businesses and burn $100 bills.
Somehow, I know, Astoria will manage to survive this.
I walked by there yesterday evening and it appeared that they were renovating (painting, etc)
people that know Tommy shouldn't be surprised. Typical Greek scumbag out of astoria....
The food at Strand is disgusting. Go to John Brown's instead.
If you listen to the dirty water taco crowd the follows the local community hispter blogs (we know who you are) you think this place is the cat's whiskers.
The area always smells of cooked meat, and they are noisy all hours in the night making it a nightmare for the local community.
Not only do the local elects look the other way, but they do so to pander to the hipster kids.
Yet another example of hollowing out a community taking the 'wants' of transients over the 'needs' of the community.
Pols love to do that.
1) Hipsters,hipsters,hipsters.
2)The area around a restaurant specializing in cooked meat smelling of cooked meat-¡Que grande sorpresa!In other words, Well Golly! SHAZAM! Sursprise,surprise, surprise!
Yes and the smell is overpowering. It needs to stay shut down.
Astoria used to be farmland back in the 18th and 19th centuries. With cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens ruling the land. Not much has changed in Astoria since then.
The hispters tweeted Costa about this and he said he would look into it - right away!
BTW, Costa is doing fund raising in Manhattan (Astoria is pretty well exhausted as a source of any one with money), and he expects us to fork over donations above several thousand for face time.
The money is to be sent to a mystery address in Nassau Co.
A student of Honest Joe Crowley if there ever was one!
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