FEATURE: Waiter, There’s an Egregious Health Violation in My Soup!

"You are what you eat, from your head down to your feet."

I recall the catchy jingle, from a cartoon commercial featuring dancing foods and singing cheese, as I enter the Egg & I on West Sahara. It's 8 a.m. and the quaint restaurant—a wooden sign reads, "A friend is someone who thinks you're a good egg even though you're slightly cracked"—is doing moderate business. Shirt-and-tied gentlemen having a power breakfast, a man in flip-flops reading a newspaper over bites of cantaloupe, a family scarfing omelets.

I'm here on a not-so-covert mission to shadow Michael Webb, deputy health officer for the Clark County Health District, on a restaurant inspection. It's one of hundreds he'll do this year and among the thousands he's done in nine years of safeguarding the public palate from hair in your pizza, floaties in your iced tea and bug appendages in your beef tepanyaki.

He's your friendly neighborhood food cop. Here to serve and protect—and, some say, to unnerve and neglect.

Culled from health district restaurant inspections dating to September 26:

Milk and raw eggs stored at improper temperatures. Dirty microwaves and ice machines. Microbial growth on soda diffusers. Beetles in the slicer bin. Raw beef and chorizo stored above produce. Uncovered chemicals on top of an ice machine. Unlabeled food in a cooler. No sell-by dates on potentially hazardous fare. Spoiled, outdated milk in the walk-in cooler. Mold growing in an ice dispenser. Leak in freezer spilling onto open boxes of meatballs. Mold on soda and tea nozzles. Food containers stowed in a restroom. No sanitizer in the three-compartment sink. Vegetables on a dirty footstool. No soap in the hand sink. Food debris in the bottom of the reach-in freezer. Employees using cloth towels to wipe their hands. Expired Half-and-Half. Chili, eggs, pepperoni, cheddar cheese, pasta and diced ham held at improper temperatures. Dust on single-service items. Household pesticide throughout the facility. Food-handler failing to wash hands after handling raw chicken. Raw chicken sitting above raw beef. PVC cement and butane hovering above food. A half-eaten breadstick on a cutting board.

These and other violations cause an estimated 250 food-borne diseases, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cost America more than $1 billion in medical costs and lost wages, generate 6,000 hospitalizations and 1,800 deaths.

Some of the violations occurred at your favorite eateries.

Still hungry?

Of course you're still hungry. And since making lunch every day of the year is impractical—and, news bulletin, because Vegas is a good city to eat in, named America's best dining city by luxury magazine the Robb Report—you're going to eat out sometime.

On a busy day, with banquets being catered and buffet dining at its max, MGM Grand, the city's largest hotel-casino, serves 35,000 meals. Down at the Golden Nugget, the number is about 10,000. They're part of the one million-plus served each day in Food City, says Van Heffner, president and chief executive officer of the Nevada Restaurant Association, which has more than 800 member restaurants. Dining and shopping revenues now surpass gaming win. So the city needs empty stomachs as much as it needs stuffed wallets. And other than, say, the cast of Jackass, it's likely few people would like butane-soaked chicken.

Forty or so health inspectors patrol the Valley's labyrinthian food beat—13,000 restaurants, from snooty Strip eateries to biker pubs, sports bars, countless trattorias and taco shops, greasy spoons with bullet-scarred exteriors and a U.N.-worthy smattering of ethnic places. These culinary Columbos look for evidence of violations seen—like live animals; or employees with boils or open wounds (real categories); or a cook dismantling a car engine in the kitchen (real story)—and unseen, like insufficient amounts of chlorine in dishwashing sanitizers.

Each Wednesday, the Review-Journal publishes some results (not all) of the county inspections; restaurants with 10 or fewer violations get an A rating; B's go to those with 11 to 20 demerits (they're reinspected within 30 days) and C's to those with 20 or more (automatically reinspected in 10 days). Forty violations and you're closed immediately.

As I said, my mission isn't covert. Egg & I co-owner Brad Burdsall knows I'm here. Part of the agreement. It's tough enough passing inspections, without an undercover reporter spilling the beans about spilled beans. Bad ratings can be kryptonite to a business. Try selling your breakfast menu when word's out you use rotten eggs or have cockroach colonies in your ice machine. Not that Burdsall has anything to fear. In 13 years running kitchens in town, from the Macaroni Grill to the Mirage, the UNLV hotel administration graduate has gotten one B. Didn't sit well with him.

"That B was at the Macaroni Grill," he says. "I've gotten A's ever since and plan to keep it that way."

Webb arrives and he's got a checklist. It outlines 40 possible infractions, categorizing them into red (critical) or blue (concerning sanitation, design and maintenance). Red violations include having spoiled foods, employees with boils, infected wounds or communicable diseases around food, improperly stored food. Places without hot water face immediate shutdown. Blue penalties include fruits and vegetables not being washed before serving, food without labels, dirty outer garments, improperly handled utensils, dirty wiping cloths and surfaces, poor lighting and ventilation.

Webb snoops for the next half hour, lasering his beady eyes everywhere. Each inspector has a personal investigative style. Webb goes "from the front to the back of the house," starting in the kitchen and working to the dining room. This is a reinspection; Burdsall's A is framed near the entrance.

We start at the back of the kitchen, and Webb makes notes as we walk. He eyes a cook preparing potato salad (noting that he should wash his hands thoroughly before handling food). Checks the sink (for wayward food particles and hot water). Scans the waffle station (for cleanliness). Pokes around in the freezer (checking packaging, labels and use-by dates).

Bending down, he sees something wrong: foil on the bottom shelf of a cabinet. Minor offense. Across from the freezer, he opens a back door to check for fly restraints—when the door opens, a curtain of air blows and shoos off the bugs. In the freezer, he makes sure raw meats are kept separate from eggs. Good. Items properly labeled. Good. He pulls out a strip, dips it in the sanitizer to measure levels of chlorine and ammonia. It comes out purple. Good.

Another thermometer. This one measures temperatures of vat-cooked foods—refried beans, two types of chili, soup and marinara sauce. One hundred-forty degrees. Good. He walks over to a container of eggs sitting on ice, feels the eggs. Cold. Good.

"A lot of my inspections are methodical," Webb says. "I've done 20,000 inspections in nine years. It's easy to see things and catch things."

Some questions.

Anyone ever try to bribe you? Sure, with meals; he's turned them down.

Ever worked a different beat. Yes. Turns out the Valley is split into districts. Every so often, inspectors switch beats.

"If you've done a facility for a long time, you need a new set of eyes on it, because you can start seeing the trees instead of the forest. You still have to know what to look for. Steak and seafood restaurants operating in the evenings have different processes than breakfast establishments. Sometimes you miss real important violations and sometimes you get everything, but only some of it gets in the R-J." He says sometimes the most egregious stuff is left out due to space.

"I've got shifty eyes," he continues. "While I'm talking to you, I'm watching things like whether employees are washing their hands."

What of the notion of disparate treatment? Do Picasso and Renoir get the same treatment as Roberto's Taco Shop?

"Our main interest is the public," he says. "I'm just as likely to downgrade a four-star restaurant as a mom-and-pop restaurant."

Like street cops, food cops generate ambivalence, alternately praised as objective and cajoled as subjective, criticized as too powerful and nitpicky—owners queried by the Weekly told of friends being unfairly targeted or shut down—or bemoaned as listless and lazy.

"They aren't the bad guys," Burdsall says. "No one wants a customer saying they got food poisoning at their establishment."

But a barkeep at a southeast Las Vegas saloon chuckled in disdain when asked if inspectors are fair. "No, but I'll let the manager tell you that."

Says the kitchen manager at a small south Strip property: They're moody, inconsistent and change the rules. Nice if they've had a good day, prickly if not. Most are inconsistent, the manager says, dinging restaurants for offenses they previously let slip or sometimes missing—or dismissing—outright violations. Sour grapes? Some of it. Inspectors gave the restaurant a C in early October. An A hung on the wall last week.

"We should've gotten an A the first time. I know lots of restaurants, even some in hotels, that are very dirty, where I won't eat," says the manager, who claims that an inspector confided that health officials are lenient on large hotels. (Note: On September 18, the main kitchen at the Las Vegas Hilton earned a B for violations including storage of raw chicken above raw beef and no sanitizer in the three-compartment sink).

In recent years, inspectors have come under scrutiny for icy relations with ethnic restaurant owners. The Asian Chamber of Commerce filed a complaint against the district in 2001, claiming poor grades conveyed the sense their eateries were dirty.

Compounding the issue is a massive growth in workload, exacerbated by a county hiring freeze. Nearly 1,200 restaurant permits are issued each year, to be policed by the same corps. Since sweeps must be conducted periodically—state law—inspectors have been urged to focus on the most egregious and apparent violations.

That means something's bound to slip through the cracks and land in your country-fried steak, A fly here. Cigarette butts from a nicotine-loving cook there. "They miss a lot," one kitchen manager says.

Restaurant reports got you considering growing your own food?

Take heart, at least it's not the 1960s.

Back then, the only place many restaurant employees could wash their hands was the restroom. Today, three-compartment sinks are standard. And over the years, the Clark County Health District has instituted food-handler courses, on-site classes at restaurants that are downgraded from A to C, and self-inspection programs. It's likely never been safer to eat in Vegas.

However …

The past year has seen several restaurants closed for having more than 40 demerits. Elite Seafood and Provisions closed on October 8, ending a few problematic years. The phone number is out of service.

From the Elite file:

February 24: "Facility must cease and desist all operations due to no hot water." Other infractions: dirty shelves, floor in disrepair, hand sink leaks to the floor, ice buildup in the walk-in freezer, dirty cutting boards in the saw room.

Felipitos Mexican Food, 1325 E. Tropicana Ave.:

February: "Owner is hereby ordered to cease and desist restaurant operation ..."

The file noted: Eggs and mayonnaise at wrong temps, inoperable hand sink, light fixture out on cook's line, walls and ceilings dirty in some places, no soap and hand sink.

The manager failed to return a call for comment. It reopened the same day and received an A.

New China Buffet Restaurant:

March 31: "Your establishment has been closed. You must pay a $110.00 reinspection fee. You must attend a supervisory conference ... You may then call for a reinspection during normal business hours."

Six pages of violations followed. The manager was unavailable for comment on steps taken to improve. On June 19, it was upgraded to an A.

Glenn Savage knows his troops have a hard job. He's environmental health director for the health district—the food sheriff, if you will. His is a supply problem. More than 100 new restaurants open each month, but the health district hasn't hired new inspectors in three years—tight budgets. In the works is a plan to reassess budgets and hire a few more inspectors. Even that won't be enough.

"Inspectors used to have to investigate 300 facilities per year, now have more than 500," he says. "Plus, we must investigate complaints. We get 3,000 food complaints a year, everything from refrigeration problems to having to do a full-blown, food-borne illness investigation."

The last outbreak of food-borne illness was in 1993, when several residents complained of poisoning from E coli-tainted beef from Jack-in-the-Box restaurants. Bad hollandaise sauce sparked a brief bout with the Norwalk virus, Webb says, and periodically customers have problems with oysters.

"If you're eating raw oysters, you're taking your life in your own hands," he says.

The manpower gap ties to one of the complaints among those noted by restaurant owners and kitchen managers: After scoring poorly on a reinspection, a restaurant may wait weeks for inspectors to return for a reevaluation. And if there's a viral outbreak, the epidemiology department springs into action, which could take months.

Again, the difficulty of selling customers on eating in a dirty restaurant.

Two years ago, Chinatown officials and health inspectors had to meet to diffuse tensions, owners alleging that bad grades were painting a false impression of Asian restaurants. In a formal complaint that year, Perry Boxx, owner of Thai Garden Restaurant on West Spring Mountain Road and Thai Garden Restaurant and Sushi Bar on Eastern, said the inspector was, "by all accounts, rude, condescending and dismissive during the inspection."

It prompted Chinatown Plaza Director of Operations Ramon Lester to write a letter to the health district on behalf of the nine restaurants in the plaza: "We feel that our relationship has changed in the past few months from a position of cooperation and help to one of an adversarial nature," Lester wrote. "Many of these owners feel that some of the inspectors have negative preconceived opinions and ideas which affect their judgment."

Things, apparently, have changed. Visited last week, several Chinatown proprietors expressed confidence in the professionalism of current inspectors.

"They are very good now," says a confection shop owner. "They listen to you and they are better trained. After the meeting, everything has been smooth. They understand they can't be too strict and must cooperate with us. Business is not that good that people can afford to have bad grades. The tourists are coming, but they aren't spending. So they (inspectors) are not getting us on every little item."

Is that a good thing?

Ten demerits sounds like a lot, considering that an employee failing to wash hands can earn three to six demerits. Dirty floor, two or more. Improperly stored silverware—where the eating ends are exposed—two or more.

Then again, the stakes are high. The CDC lists more than 250 food-borne illnesses—caused by bacteria, parasites and natural and manmade chemicals—including doozies like these:

Campylobacter. Acquired:
It's spread by improperly stored foods or food-handlers who use the restroom and don't wash their hands.
Symptoms: swelling in the lining of the small intestine, fever, cramping abdominal pain and diarrhea.

Shigella. Acquired:
Food prepared by cooks with unclean hands.
Symptoms: abdominal cramps, chills, dehydration, fever, headache and nausea.

Salmonella. Acquired:
Raw chicken or beef thawed at room temperature or not thoroughly cooked; eggs, raw salads, milk and shellfish are also vulnerable.
Symptoms: abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting.

Hepatitis A. Acquired:
Fecal-to-oral transmission—employees failing to wash hands, then preparing food.
Symptoms: jaundice, fatigue, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, nausea and diarrhea.

None of that nastiness going on at the Egg & I. Burdsall's A is intact. Good news for his customers, 300 of them on weekdays, 700 to 900 on weekends. He likes the surprise visits. Keeps him on his toes and constantly rehearsing safety procedures with staff, many of whom are Hispanic and speak little or no English.

"If you run things clean and have all your systems in place you will be OK," he says. "The last thing you want is a customer calling and complaining about food poisoning."