Updated: Review of Downtown Santa Ana’s bar and restaurant health violations

We took a look at the  the health and safety violations given to Downtown Santa Ana’s bars and restaurants by the Orange County Health Care Agency, after this year’s “Taste of Santa Ana.”   The result?  Pandemonium set in.  Now we have looked up their violations again and guess what?  Most of these restaurants are still a mess.

Remember that thanks to our lame Orange County Supervisors, in particular Supervisor Janet Nguyen, our County does not use letter health grades for bars and restaurants.  Unless you look up these establishments in advance, here, you will have no idea what you are getting into.

We didn’t look at every single establishment.  Instead we went after the biggest names – these are the bars and restaurants who should know better – many of them have highly trained executive chefs.  As such this overall poor record is without excuse.

It should be noted that Downtown Inc., the non-profit that administers hundreds of thousands of dollars of property tax money pilfered from Downtown Santa Ana business property owners, has promised to make Downtown Santa Ana safe – but their sister Restaurant Association appears to be focused on marketing, not food safety.

Here is a rundown of the worst offenders:

Chapter One: The Modern Local – Inspected on Oct. 26, 2012

Memphis at the Santora – Inspected on Oct. 16, 2012

Routine Inspection on Oct. 9, 2012

The Playground – Routine Inspection on Nov. 8, 2012 – plus change of ownership

Inspected on Nov. 6, 2012

The Velvet Lounge – Inspected on July 12, 2012

Yost Theater – Inspected on August 29, 2012

Eibar Coffee – Inspected on July 12, 2012

Festival Hall/Azteca – Inspected on August 22, 2012 (Cleared on re-inspection on September 10, 2012)

Proof Bar – Inspected on August 16, 2012

The Copper Door – Routine Inspection on Nov. 6, 2012

Lola Gaspar – Inspected on July 2, 2012

 Gypsy Den – Inspected on August 6, 2012

 The Crosby – Inspected on June 12, 2012 and reinspected on June 27, 2012

 The Crosby – Routine Inspection on Oct. 30, 2012

Food safety is not rocket science.  Today restaurant chefs have to be trained in food safety as do all food handlers.  That these establishments keep getting busted is very unsettling.

You can look up more bars and restaurants here.  And click here to see which restaurants have been shut down.

Art Pedroza Editor

Our Editor, Art Pedroza, worked at the O.C. Register and the OC Weekly and studied journalism at CSUF and UCI. He has lived in Santa Ana for over 30 years and has served on several city and county commissions. When he is not writing or editing Pedroza specializes in risk control and occupational safety. He also teaches part time at Cerritos College and CSUF. Pedroza has an MBA from Keller University.

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