Guess Whats Coming With Dinner?
The department’s headquarters building at Broad and Lombard is a classic example of a bureaucratic sweatshop. Dim lighting, an antique elevator, dingy surroundings, noxious chemical odors, and a filthy overall veneer would all seem to indicate that the Health Department building would never pass inspection by its own staff. At the height of the summer heat wave, the air conditioning broke down and to this day, no one is really sure what effect that had on the ongoing laboratory testing operations.
SINCE THEIR NUMBERS are so few, Health Department investigators do not take unnecessary risks. In the interest of survival, they refuse to visit any bar-grill in the Jungle on Fridays, where the inspector usually finds himself the only white man in a crowd of 100 to 200 people. They are abused, cursed at, threatened, assaulted, spat upon and despised throughout the black and Puerto Rican areas of the city. In white neighborhoods the reaction is slightly less violent, but equally disheartening and frustrating.
There are a few non-white inspectors and one of the most popular and powerful men in the department, acting section chief Robert L. Davis, is a black sanitarian who worked his way up through the ranks. The inspectors refuse to cite racial antagonism as a serious problem on the job, but nevertheless when their inspections take them to South Street, Columbia Avenue, Germantown Avenue and 52nd Street, alone, unarmed and white, they long for the security of the Broad and Lombard stronghold — wretched as it is.
If they are really in physical danger, they are permitted to request police escorts, but this is unofficially frowned upon by co-workers and superiors alike.
They are forced to make their rounds on foot because the City does not provide inspectors with official cars or adequate mileage reimbursement when they use their own autos.
The physical danger that frequently confronts the inspectors is real and menacing.
Ronald Smith, a 29-year-old Philadelphian with an M.A. from Michigan, is now assistant to the milk and food control administrator. He began as a sanitarian and has had a number of very close calls.
The first involved a woman who was serving hot soup and homemade food to longshoremen on the docks. She carried the food without benefit of refrigeration, and the probability of food poisoning was a very real one. Smith tracked her down to the docks and attempted to inspect her car. Suddenly, he was surrounded by 20 stevedores who thought that he was intimidating the woman. He barely escaped. The next time he spotted her and moved in, the longshoremen came after him with baling hooks but he had taken the precaution of requesting police protection ahead of time. As things turned out, the cops arrived in the nick of time.
This past summer, Randy Hirschhorn sweltered in the temperature as he patrolled South Street between Eighth and 26th, inspecting the grocery stores, bars and greasy spoons that dot the thoroughfare like fleas on a mangy dog.
At a soul food shop between 18th and 19th Streets, he found enough violations to fill a single-spaced six-page report.
