Thursday, November 22, 2012

Getting the Government You Voted For

Nearly four weeks since Sandy savaged New York (among others) and tens of thousands are still without heat power water food housing.

So volunteers want to help.

Their thanks?

Being cited for a violation for not maintaining "restaurant standards" in a food tent set up to feed victims and first responders.

Really?

REALLY?!?

This is the best they can do?

These guys seem to be doing more than the local state and federal governments (hey, I didn't vote for these guys) and their response is to slap them on the wrist?

How about lending a little support instead?

Fucking morons.

Fox:

NYC sends health teams to post-Sandy food handouts, rubbing some wrong way 


The New York City Department of Health has been dispatching workers to storm-ravaged areas across the five boroughs as part of an outreach to ensure that volunteers are informed on proper food-handling and other safety issues.

But the presence of health officials has caused some confusion as to where the city is drawing the line between advisement and enforcement.

Bobby Eustace, an 11-year veteran with the city's fire department tells FoxNews.com that on Sunday he and his fellow firefighters from Ladder 27 in the Bronx were issued a notice of violation for not maintaining restaurant standards in a tent set up in Breezy Point, Queens, to feed victims and first responders.

“It’s just a little ridiculous. The inspector came up and asked if we were wearing hairnets. I told him, ‘We have helmets. This is a disaster area,’” Eustace told FoxNews.com. “Then he asked is we had gloves and thermometers [for food]. I said, “Yeah, we have rectal and oral. Which one do you want?’ He wasn’t amused.”

Eustace says that the Health Department worker then checked off a list of violations at the relief tent, including not having an HVAC system and fire extinguisher.

“He told us that he might come back to see if we fixed the violations. But what can we do? We are just going to keep going until a professional catering company can help take over,” Eustace said, adding that firefighters across the city together have been contributing about $800 a day out of their own pockets to feeding victims in areas hit hard by Sandy.

But a spokeswoman for the NYC Department of Health tells FoxNews.com that workers were not sent to issue violations. Rather, it was more of an outreach to inform volunteers on the proper way to handle food.

“We went out just to give recommendations. We were only at these locations in an advisory role,” the spokeswoman said.

Apparently, that wasn't the message Eustace received.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

'But a spokeswoman for the NYC Department of Health tells FoxNews.com that workers were not sent to issue violations. Rather, it was more of an outreach to inform volunteers on the proper way to handle food.

“We went out just to give recommendations. We were only at these locations in an advisory role,” the spokeswoman said.'

Bullshit.

The state of New York and all the municipal bureaucracies that are within the state's boundaries are filled with career bureaucrats who draw fat salaries, hideously expensive taxpayer funded pensions, and benefit packages that rival those of many executives (also taxpayer funded). For the most part, they're unproductive slobs who happily feed at the government (taxpayer funded) trough for an entire career - welfare queens that on rare occasion go to work long enough to mimic respectability (but not productivity).

But following Sandy, the cameras were on and the world was watching. The bureaucrats of New York needed to be ON THE JOB, protecting citizens from evil firemen who must surely be putting something bad in their "free" (taxpayer funded) food.

Bobby Eustace should have told the NYC Department of Health official to go fuck himself. And the health official should have had the decency to comply.

Always On Watch said...

But of course these food inspector Nazis descended!

Something similar recently happened in Northern Virginia when a school had a special drive for the Food Bank. The health inspector shut down the volunteer program on which the children had worked so hard. The next day -- I kid you not -- the health inspector rescinded the measure of shutting down the program. Of course, by then, the kids and the school principal were disheartened.

I doubt that this particular school will ever again have a volunteer program to help those who are less fortunate.