Even Scrooge wouldn’t do this.
Bobby Eustace, a firefighter out of Ladder 27 in the Bronx, has been serving free hot food to the homeless and displaced and to relief workers and volunteers in Breezy Point, Queens, since two days after the hurricane hit.
On Sunday, Eustace and dozens of fellow firefighter volunteers served 800 free hot meals from a steamy Army tent in this hemorrhaging beach community, where there are no longer stores or restaurants, where most people have no gas to cook with, no heat or hot water and no hot food.
That afternoon, a freon-blooded inspector from the city’s Department of Health issued Eustace a notice of violation for not meeting the same food-handling standards as, say, the Four Seasons.
This is beyond outrageous.
This is Emperor Bloomberg’s bureaucracy gone completely mad in a time of death and destruction in the week of Thanksgiving and when the decent people of this city have united to help the unfortunate.
Even the Grinch who stole Christmas would have protested.
“I was working in the Bronx when Sandy hit,” says Eustace, an 11-year veteran of the FDNY. “Our company was sent down to 116th St. and Rockaway Point Blvd. the next day to knock door-to-door to check on citizens. We pulled a DOA out on 117th St. The devastation was unbelievable. It broke your heart.”
He also realized the people of Rockaway had no food or water.
“People were donating canned food, but without gas or a home, you can’t cook and it’s like eating dog food,” he says. “So I cooked some trays of food in our firehouse. Then other guys in other firehouses in Battalion 17 started cooking trays of chicken parm, sausage and peppers, pasta, big pots of chili and soup, and we took it down to Rockaway and gave it out. People were starving. Then we went to Breezy Point. I took down our 6-foot firehouse barbecue and cooked hot dogs and hamburgers. People lined up, starving from working all day.”
This is the city of New York at its best, a scene from Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” good people united to do good things for one another in a time of need.
“We set up an Army tent in Breezy outside the Catholic Club and every day, on our own time after our firefighting tours, we’d go feed the relief workers, soldiers, cops, sanitationmen, homeless, people cleaning out their basements and trying to save their homes. I never witnessed better community spirit in this city.”
Then last Friday, a Buildings Department inspector started checking the soundness of the tent poles. “We told him to take a hike,” says Eustace. “Then on Sunday, as we fed 800 to 1,000 people, I served one dazed-looking woman, middle-aged, tired, and I asked how she was doing. She said, ‘Best I can. The bulldozer is coming tomorrow.’ My heart just broke for her as she took a plate of hot food and prepared for her home to be demolished.”
Then two officious bureaucrats wearing Department of Health jackets arrived.
“One has a clipboard and a camera,” says Eustace. “The other does the talking. He asks who’s in charge. I said this is a volunteer operation. No bosses. He starts asking if we have hairnets. I say, no, just helmets. Rubber gloves? No, work gloves. Thermometers? I say, ‘Yeah, rectal and oral, which one you want?’ ”
The Health Department inspector wasn’t amused as he started marking boxes on a bureaucratic form.
“He asked if we’d registered with the Department of Health,” Eustace said. “I said no, this was a tailgate food giveaway. He said the mayor’s office sent him down to check on the food dispensaries. I’m dealing with hungry women whose homes are being bulldozed and he wants a license to give her a bowl of chili. I asked him where you got a license to feed hungry people and give out bottles of water during a tragedy.”
It astounds me that the city can afford to pay a Health Department inspector on a Sunday, at the scene of a national calamity, to issue violations as people scavenge in the cindered sand for lost possessions before the bulldozer razes their shattered dreams.
The inspector asked Eustace to sign a notice of violation, No. 99999998, with the printed name Camisi and an illegible signature, dated Nov. 18, 2012. “He said if I didn’t clear up the violations, the next time he would issue a summons with a fine,” says Eustace.
When asked about this absurd practice, a Department of Health spokesperson checked into it and later said, “Inspectors were not supposed to be giving out notice of violation forms. That was a mistake. Inspectors will not be using that form anymore. Inspectors will only be advising people in storm-affected areas on how they can better serve food without spreading food-borne illnesses.”
Roger that.
This is what the city of New York did for the relief effort of Sandy victims.
This notice of violation is a violation of human decency.
Mayor Bloomberg should bury his head in shame in the sands of Breezy Point.
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