By Dharshani Dharmawardena
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
As UCLA graduates and sports fans prepared to celebrate in Westwood earlier this month, the Department of Health Services and Environmental Health closed down Madison’s Bar and Grill, a popular student locale on Broxton Avenue.
Health inspectors shut down the restaurant because of cockroach infestation and a sewer drainage problem, according to Adam Rocke, the West Area Environmental Services manager within the Bureau of District Environmental Services. The restaurant has since reopened.
“There were cockroaches in varying stages of development,” he said.
The inspectors discovered the violations during an unannounced, routine examination of the facility on June 16.
“We have basically a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to a vermin infestation,” Rocke said. “If we see live vermin in the facility in an amount that shows there is an infestation, we will close them down.”
According to Rocke, inspectors determine whether an infestation is occurring within an establishment if they see significant amounts of vermin in the surroundings.
Madison’s manager, Leigh Slawner, agreed with Rocke’s assessment for the closure, but wanted to clarify the terms used in the reasoning.
“Any kind of pipe that’s damaged, no matter where it is, is called sewage,” he said. “If the pipe in the toilet leading to the bathrooms breaks down, you’re talking about sewage. If the pipe is freshwater or tap water, that’s also sewage.”
At Madison’s, a pipe located under the bar area failed to drain properly, which caused inspectors to decide to close the facility.
Slawner said the inspector failed to find cockroaches in any food preparation areas. The problem, Slawner said, remained isolated to an upstairs back area not associated with food.
“There have never been any cockroaches in the kitchen or in the bar area,” Slawner said. “She looked for cockroaches elsewhere and could not find any.”
Restaurants closed for vermin infestation remain shut for 48 hours under departmental policy, after which an announced re-inspection occurs to see if the owners have rectified the problems, Rocke said.
“That gives them some time for pest control to come in and any residue will have time to kill the remaining vermin,” he said.
Even though the broken pipe drained properly when inspectors returned to Madison’s on June 18, they still found live cockroaches and decided that the facility was not suitable for operation, according to Rocke.
After the facility reopened on June 20, it received a “C” from the Health Department. The department assigns letter grades to food establishments based on an inspection score ranging from 70-100 points.
Slawner and co-manager Sacha Bambadji said they tried their best to prepare the building for reinspection, but because the closure occurred on a Friday evening, they had difficulty in finding a pest-control company.
“(The inspector) found a few living stragglers after the main pest control people had come through,” Slawner said. “When you have any kind of problem like this and you do pest control, a few of them survive and die out gradually.”
Still emphasizing that structural problems rather than food preparation violations led to the closure, both Slawner and Bambadji attributed Madison’s age and location with some of its problems and its C grade.
“You’re going to have some general maintenance problems, especially when we try to preserve the natural architecture of (the building),” Bambadji said.
Because of the closure, Madison’s lost revenue that would have been brought by fans coming to watch the Lakers game and the Oscar de la Hoya vs. Shane Mosley fight, as well as by celebrating graduates.
“That is the end of our year,” Bambadji said. “Our big business year. That’s where we take revenue from that weekend and really reinvest it into the business.”
Slawner, while unable to quantify the losses, said the business had already invested $1,500 in pay-per-view services for that weekend.
Additionally, Slawner said the restaurant’s workers went unpaid for that time.
“I’ve got a staff of 10 to 20 people,” he said. “As a business, we will survive,obviously, but on the personal level, I’ve got bartenders, waitresses and security people here. All of us didn’t work this weekend.”
“They lose in a weekend (two hundred) to three hundred dollars,” Slawner continued.
Slawner and Bambadji both said they have taken steps to meet all the standards set by the health department, including hiring a new pest control company.
“We’ve been given a lot more freedom because of our experience to run this business in a successful, yet … safe, healthy and attractive way, and that’s our goal,” Bambadji said.
“You have to remember that our grade is only temporarily a C,” Slawner said. “We’re confident we’re going back to a B.”
Slawner said Madison’s employees and health department officials have cooperated to reach a successful end.
“It’s not us versus the health department or sides,” he said. “We work with them. The inspectors that came out have been very helpful in terms of not just pointing out a problem or recommending to fix a problem, but have been overall very supportive and nice people.”
Speaking from experience, Rocke said he did not expect Madison’s to reopen with any new violations.
“We find that facilities that are closed down have a tendency to dramatically improve, and for the most part, many of them maintain that level,” he said. “We’re not going to let them open unless they’re in really good shape.”