Guess Whats Coming With Dinner?
Philadelphia was being cleaned up in short order, Specter had a new feather in his cap, and a newcomer to Specter’s squad, Fred Voigt, quickly earned the nickname of "Mr. Clean" from admirers throughout the municipal system who marveled at his single-minded dedication in prosecuting health code violators.
Voigt, who entered the DA’s service in September 1971, had a great background for his role with Specter because he had been one of the city solicitors who prosecuted the violations of Philadelphia food laws for the Department of Health. In Specter’s office he was just substituting one jurisdiction for another in the same field of law enforcement.
Then an odd thing happened. The evidence that Assistant DA Voigt had been collecting against repeater-violators was commandeered by Pennsylvania Attorney General Shane Creamer’s new branch office in Lansdale.
Creamer’s people, claiming that they could speed up court procedures, decided to begin prosecuting State law violators on their own.
Voigt, a volatile man by nature, saw red, but he could only acquiesce to the stealing of his thunder by the State Attorney General’s Office. There was only one case in particular that he had been anxious to see through to the end. It involved the Penn Center Prime Meats store on 19th Street near Chestnut.
The proprietor had already been convicted and fined twice for selling adulterated meat that was contaminated with illegal doses of a preservative chemical, sulfur dioxide. This additive makes inferior quality meat look good and taste fresh. Back in the 1940s the FDA announced that tests had proven that a small dose of this chemical could retard the growth of rats. Laboratory tests showed that in an average piece of meat at this store there was twice as much sulfur dioxide present as was necessary to cause mutated rats.
Voigt had the store set up in such a way that contaminated evidence would be obtained for a third and fourth time, exposing the proprietors for prosecution in criminal court. But the Pennsylvania inspectors, working under orders from the Attorney General’s Office, identified themselves, thus tipping the store owners off and ruining the DA’s plan.
Some months later Penn Center Prime Meats was at it again and a fourth conviction was obtained for a violation of the pure sausage law, but the attorney general’s people have not pressed for the anticipated criminal action.
Voight is still steaming.
THE INCIDENT DOES illustrate the fact that on many levels City and State cooperation in the area of health sanitation is negligible.
