Health Dept’s Investigation of Larchmont Bungalow
On March 23rd, a specialist visited the Larchmont Bungalow to conduct an investigation after food-poisoning complaints were filed with the Health Department’s Morbidity Unit. We published the contents of her report here: https://larchmontla.com/LB
There are 150 pages of related documents to this investigation that contain tangential information — they include signed statements, names of Bungalow staff, names of vendors and suppliers, inter-department communication among county agencies, etc.
We had initially decided to leave this aspect of the Larchmont Bungalow’s problems to the side because the city’s criminal case against them is going to be heard soon, and publishing additional documents would detract from their trial.
Now we have decided to release as fast as we can the information that is in our possession. These are our reasons:
1. There are still Bungalow supporters who refer to the food-poisoning complaints as “made-up” or rumor. They keep insinuating that we fabricated the health department report that shows that a specialist found six violations at the restaurant on March 23rd when she went there to conduct a field investigation in response to customer complaints.
2. LarchmontLA has received threatening communications from the Bungalow — they have gone as far as calling the LAPD to have arrested at the farmers market our reporter who is in charge of investigating the legal cases against Bungalow. We have to make it clear that we will not be intimidated.
If you would like to request a copy of the health-department records, please call (626) 430-5400.
On March 23rd, 2011 — these were the facts stated by Larchmont Bungalow to the Health Department:
“Owner” Ken Bernard
Chef Denvil Christie
Phone (323) 464-1528
Certified Food Handler: Emmanuel H
Person in Charge: Bernardo H
Number of employees: 42
Number of servers: 2 runners
New hires (within 30 days): 3-4
Foods reported to the health department:
bison chili, omelets, scones, beef burger, tuna melt, fries…
The health investigator asked if there was an employee who worked at other food establishments. Bungalow answered “Yes, at other location, same owner” (likely referring to Twirl Yogurt -ed).
The health investigator asked if there was an employee who traveled to other countries. Bungalow stated “No.” (There are confirmed reports that an employee had traveled overseas approximately two weeks before customers started complaining about food poisoning. – ed.)
Health investigator asked if there was an employee with a recent illness.
Bungalow stated “No.”
Larchmont Bungalow stated that they hadn’t served scones in the previous six months.
We intend to further add information to this page with PDF files of the scanned documents. If you would like to confirm information with the health department, call (626) 430-5400.
The process of gathering information from government agencies is bureaucratic, and when people heard that we had assigned staff to deal with these issues, concerned citizens gave us tips as to which records to look at. That’s how we discovered that Twirl had its yogurt machines red-tagged by the health department on October 20, 2010.
Twenty-nine pounds of yogurt had to be thrown out for being at a temperature unsuitable for consumption. The public record shows the general manager of Twirl agreed to close the facility until the malfunctioning machines were fixed.
We further received a copy of a November 2008 official inspection report that shows at least one food-poisoning complaint formally submitted to the health department against the Alcove Cafe, during which time the general manager was the same person as the GM of Twirl and Larchmont Bungalow.
To independently verify these facts for yourself, call the health department at (626) 430-5400 and make a request for records.
Because the city’s criminal case against Larchmont Bungalow is scheduled for May 17th, we have been devoting staff resources to researching information at the city, instead of the county. If there’s a specific aspect of the Bungalow issues that you would like us to look at or to clarify, please email [email protected]
For instance, most people have been assuming that the Bungalow’s permit was revoked in December 2009 on account of the “Q” conditions, as has widely been reported in traditional media. In fact, the Bungalow was cleared for Q back in May 2009. The revocation was because of misrepresentations in the information submitted by the Bungalow to the city in June 2009.
We will try to respond within a reasonable timeframe, but understand that we are unpaid volunteers living under the poverty line going up against the Bungalow, whose group has millions of dollars for attorneys, law clerks and public-relations people who are adept at navigating bureaucracy, the judicial system, and the court of public opinion.
This page is a rough draft rushingly published on May 1st, after the Bungalow publicly stated that they asked LAPD officers to confront a beat reporter at the farmers market in the hopes of having her “spend the night in jail.”
We are often accused of “sitting” on stories by real-time readers because we do not immediately publish information upon receipt. Our reason for this is we have to double- even triple-check sources and also try to dissect what the data mean. After the events of May 1st, we have decided to publish the following even before we are ready with details.
APPLICATION / PERMIT NUMBER: 11016-10000-02575
PLAN CHECK / JOB NUMBER: B11LA01343
On February 11, 2011 a permit application was submitted to the city to change the use of the property at 107 N Larchmont “from office to coffee store primarily with the purpose of selling food to be consumed off premises.”
On February 23, it was noted that the property’s application for “Commercial Corner / Mini-Mall“ was not cleared. The only stated items it was cleared for in this particular application were “Address approval” and “Food Service Establishment.”
The current status date for this application is March 2, 2011. They were cleared for an unstated “Miscellaneous” item on April 8, 2011.
If you would like to investigate for yourself what this means, please call the Department of Building and Safety at (213) 482-6730. And please email [email protected] for any tips or information. Thank you.
We will be adding more to this page throughout the night.