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

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• Art, again you continue to bash Santa Ana. It's embarrassing and libelous. I am ashamed you live here because you don't root for the town as a whole, you root for one sector only in a thin veil of health-related issues. You KNOW you purposely attacked white owned businesses while leaving out the rest. You should be wearing a brown hood because it is no different. When you stand up for someone (which I applaud), you should not have to tear down another faction to do it. That is unethical, nasty, and racist. You KNOW what you are doing, but just can't stop yourself from doing it the wrong way.

  • Businesses work very hard to build trust with their clients. But when restaurants have records of repeated health violations that trust is sundered. Could I have mentioned more examples of this in my post? Sure. But why? What would be the point?

    I heard today that the Santa Ana Planning Agency looked at all the restaurants in the Downtown area and guess what? They are all a hot mess. This reflects very poorly on Downtown Inc. and their Restaurant Association.

    Don't blame me for the inability of these businesses to run their operations in a clean fashion. This is not my problem. It is entirely theirs.

    Libel by the way refers to lies. There is NOTHING untrue in this post. I went out of my way to link to the source material. If anything you are libeling me.

    And for the record I am not bashing Santa Ana. I would never do that. I am however informing my readers that they need to be careful where they choose to eat.

    • AGAIN!! THE RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION ARE A SEPARATE ENTITY FROM DOWNTOWN INC!! Why is that so difficult for you to grasp. They are responsible for their own house keeping. DTI could shake a finger at the owner's of the restaurants and say, 'bad, bad, bad, dirty, bad,' but that would be it. No authority over the association. DTI cannot write anyone up for the behavior, no detention hall, no litter pick up on the sides of the freeways. The Orange County Health Department inspectors handle that. This conversation bores me now. Can't teach an old blog/dog new tricks. The Grilled Cheese Spot sounds yummy! OPEN, OPEN, OPEN!

      • Look at their last newsletter under "calendar," and you will see that they list the restaurant association meetings. http://www.downtown-santaana.com/reports/2011_May_Newsletter.pdf

        Then look at their last Annual Report (dated 2009) at http://www.downtown-santaana.com/reports/2010_Annual.pdf, where you will find their promise to maintain a "clean and safe environment."

        Finally, go back and look at those health and safety violations and tell me how these restaurants are maintaining "clean and safe environments."

        • Not the responsibility of Downtown Incorporated. Not my responsibility, not your responsibility, not my neighbor's responsibility. Those big kids are responsible for themselves.

          I'm done with this blame it on DTI/PBID blog post. You just don't get it. Everyone knows the truth, Downtown Santa Ana is so much better since all the artists came to town. The hate is just jealousy and envy. I guess the haters missed the train called, 'the world we live in today,' and caught the 'slow boat to nowhere.' Figures.

          That was entertaining. The End.

        • Please don't drag the artists into this. It is not their fault these restaurants have hygiene problems.

    • You ARE bashing Santa Ana!!! The restaurants there work very hard to make a creative menu for people. You should be SUPPORTING the new places in Santa Ana instead of trying to find fault. And yet, you continue to find fault in the "new" restaurant owners and entrepeneurs there. Your true colors have been shown. You don't care about Santa Ana, you only care about Latino businesses (who also had minor violations). That is racist any way you slice it. Favoring one race over another is the same as hating another race. Until you can see no color, you are a RACIST, pure and simple. You must support all of Santa Ana to be a good person, including new businesses, new restaurants, new faces, new races. Until you do that, the majority will always consider you as racist and biased, and out of control. You have become the fringe. You are now the enemy as a fringe member of the community who only sees brown in your downtown.

      • Did you know that the Liberal OC has a post up that actually does bash our city? Apparently some homeless guy punched the Executive Director of the DPOC and the Liberal OC bloggers wasted no time in asserting that our city is crime-ridden and unsafe. Did you go over there and protest that post? Somehow I doubt it.

        I don't care that the owners of the unsanitary establishments in question are white. That is not my peeve. My issue is that they are robbing the other business owners in Downtown Santa Ana and spending that money to market themselves. And there is the rub. Downtown Inc says they are using the PBID money to make Downtown Santa Ana safe. But just look at the long record of health violations at each of these restaurants and bars! It is simply horrific. What exactly is safe about these eateries?

        It is by the way rather presumptuous of you to call me a racist. Have you seen my picture? I am probably whiter than you! My ancestry is almost entirely European. And most of my friends are of many races. Just check out my Facebook account. I have friends from every race and in fact I spent the evening tonight with twenty very white Libertarians.

        I do not have to support every business in Santa Ana to be a good person. I will support those companies who give a damn about their customers. I will not support businesses that do not take safety seriously, period. Particularly when they should know better!

        If you buy a plate of cheap tacos you don't expect much really but to get full. But when you plunk down more than twenty bucks for your dinner you ought to expect not just good taste but also good hygiene. Those eateries that overcharge but under-deliver are doomed.

• I had a first hand experience, only one downtown restaurant just one time, but it was nasty. Not too long ago, on a Sunday afternoon, I was in a popular downtown restaurant participating in an activity that made use of the closed kitchen. What I saw and the smell took every bit of my self control to keep me on task and not let myself become ill. I wanted to scream foul from the roof top!

  I fear local restaurants and food trucks are so caught up on being trendy that they have little regard for what MUST be the first item agenda for a food business, and that would be running a clean shop and healthy establishment!

  I may have missed Art's point here but this seemed like a good place to share my observations and a concern about our local food businesses.

  For the record it is my wish that all our local restaurants and food trucks step up and become THE VERY BEST ... the whole package, neat, clean and tasty!

• Not the responsibility of Downtown Incorporated. Not my responsibility, not your responsibility, not my neighbor’s responsibility. Those big kids are responsible for themselves.

  If so then allow them to promote themselves. DTI do not use PBID money to subsidize their businesses for their financial gain. I can keep this tax money to promote myself.

  what about you supporting DTI a group that sets it self up in a undemocratic unconstitutional manner noyt allowingn us the property owners who pay the PBID tax elect the bpoard of directors.......TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.

  Does anyone believe this set up was not done with an agenda.

• Memphis is about as original as McDonalds.

  The sysco truck that deliver frozen chicken there makes it's next stop at Applebee's and then Chilli's.

  At least Norms can be counted on for character (unlike Mayoral canidate David Benavides).

• Hey dude,

  Can you bring me a Del beef w/ extra cheese and sour cream to the debate/discussions tonight.

  I'm starvin'. I'll go easy on your boi Benavides in return.

• This is quite pathetic, I have eaten at most of these places and had nothing but a great experience, I think you might want to find out what the agenda really is here.

  • We reported exactly what we found on the Orange County Health Care Agency's website. And we will be updating this post soon.

• some very good reasons to eat at home.

  • Not! Yummy!

    • That's right. Unclean restaurants are not yummy!

      • They were yummy tonight! Memphis! Yum! IZALCO! Awesome! Taquerias Guadalajara! Even more yum!

• They are supposed to be trained chefs! Food safety is the FIRST thing they reach u in school....WTF? These lazy managers and chefs should know better...some said that the writer of this article only focused on Non Hispanic operated restaurants...yes...that's right because they are supposed to be TRAINED! And should know the basics! ...glad someone put these hipster infested restaurants on blast..i say bring letter grades to OC