Friendly's not quite friendly
Published on June 23rd, 2004
STONEHAM, MA - Friendly's Restaurant on Main St. may soon be shut down for the second time in 13 months after a district manager refused to discuss repeated health violations with the town's Board of Health last Thursday night.
With the restaurant fined $600 and cited this May for infractions such as placing soiled towels on clean plates, storing raw chicken next to ready-to-eat hamburger buns, and allowing employees to handle food without gloves, the ice-cream chain representative walked out of the meeting before discussing a single health violation.
Spooked by the presence of the local media, Friendly's District Manager Mark Weare felt uncomfortable public ally discussing the establishment's health violations in light of a recent Hepatitis A outbreak at a separate Arlington location. But with the far-reaching impacts of that Arlington outbreak extending into the town's borders -- as a young Stoneham girl contracted the viral liver disease after she patronized the Arlington branch -- Board of Health members expressed little sympathy for Weare's discomfort.
"I'm not comfortable with the store being opened," retorted Board of Health member Ben DiRusso.
"Timing is everything and it's because we're trying to prevent what happened in Arlington that you're here. I'm losing my patience with what's happening over there," added Board of Health member John Scullin as Weare scurried towards the exit door.
According to Board of Health Chairman Mike Rolli, the Main St. restaurant has not been the source of any type of outbreak and does not pose any immediate health threats.
Adding that 90-percent of such violations are often quickly corrected, Rolli remained confident that Friendly's management would cooperate with the Board of Health to resolve the health infractions.
"The Board of Health will be working with the management of Friendly's to address any concerns. A meeting will be set up in the near future to correct the above violations," said Rolli.
According to Friendly's spokeswoman Maura Tobias, her company "takes full responsibility for what happens in our restaurants," and will immediately work on correcting the violations.
But with the ice-cream chain's regular customers consisting of children and senior citizen populations highly susceptible to food-borne illnesses, Rolli and Stoneham Health Agent Bob Bracey warned the Main St. business is running out of time.
"I'd say there's a 50-percent chance they'll be closed down. You have to remember this is the third time. We've issued them almost $2000 in tickets and they're just writing them off. They're not even blinking their eyes," said Bracey.
According to the write-ups of the restaurant, Bracey was first called to the Main St. business after receiving an anonymous complaint that workers were handling money and then touching food without washing their hands. Following up on the complaint during an April 2, 2003 inspection, Bracey found 33 violations at the establishment, 11 of which were classified as critical. During several follow-up inspections between mid-April and February, Bracey continually found the same types of problems. Citing the chain over those months for having flies in the kitchen, storing toxic chemicals on top of potato chips and adjacent to clean plates, allowing employees with open cuts to handle food, and for failing to keep sanitizer in the food preparation areas, the Board of Health briefly closed the ice-cream chain down on Feb. 24. According to both Rolli and Bracey, all of these violations and problems could easily fade into the past if the restaurant properly trains it's staff about food handling.
"The Board of Health has two priorities. We want to protect the health of the community and we want to see local businesses flourish," said Rolli.
"Our first priority with these businesses is to try to work with them to educate them. If they're educated and do what they're supposed to, then our other priority [of seeing business's flourish] falls into line," Bracey added.
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