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Gross Trend? Salad Bar Without Sneeze Guard!
By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 4, 2009
Modified Aug 4, 2009
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John Del Signore/Gothamist
By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 4, 2009
Modified Aug 4, 2009
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Workers at the DUMBO grocery store Foragers spent about a week installing what was supposed to be a vastly improved salad bar at the Front Street location. It finally debuted last Friday, but it looks like they've decided not to install the customary plastic shield that protects consumers from strangers' unhygienic snot spray. The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene directed our questions to the state's Department of Agriculture and Markets, so here's Section 271-8.2 about salad bars from the state's regulations for retail food stores:
(a) Food shields or sneeze guards must be of the canopy type and must completely cover the display/dispensing unit from above. Such shields shall be mounted so as to intercept a direct line between the customer's mouth and the food display area at the customer use position. Width of the salad bar unit should be restricted to limit reaching over food product.
Neither a manager nor an employee at Foragers could say whether a sneeze guard is imminent, and we seemed to be the only customers revolted by this unsanitary state of affairs. But maybe the other customers are right to be apathetic, because even with a sneeze guard, terrible, disgusting things can happen to salad bars—like the time that deranged man was arrested for spraying midtown salad bars with a mixture of... well, it's your call if you want to know the rest. You've been warned.
Tagged
brooklyn
department health
doh
dumbo
forager's
grocery
law
rule
salad bar
sneeze guard
supermarket
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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