Corona Officials Groan; Fledgling Weiss Beer Lobby Fears Repercussions

This one of those stories that make people elsewhere realize that New York is ridiculous:

Moonshine is the kind of cozy, lived-in Brooklyn bar that allowed customers to bring dogs inside and meat for the grill outside, both of which, it would come to learn, are against New York City health department regulations. But no one foresaw one violation uncovered during a recent surprise inspection of the Red Hook tavern.

It was tucked within the array of more common infractions on the inspectors’ forms for which Moonshine was cited: the grills, the “live dog” in the bar, fruit flies and “7 mice excreta” in the basement. If widely enforced, it is not an exaggeration to say that the rule would radically change the way thousands of bartenders do one small but vital part of their job every single day.

“A male worker observed having bare-hand contact with one slice of ready-to-eat lime while placing on top of beer bottle for patron in bar,” the citation, dated Oct. 9, states. Bare-hand contact? How else is a bartender supposed to get a ready-to-eat lime slice into a bottle of Corona for a patron? According to the health department, there are two solutions.

Plastic gloves or tongs.

In other words, every time a bartender in New York City puts a lime slice in that Corona with bare hands, he or she is breaking the law.

The exact number of bars cited for improper handling of limes was not available from the department, but it is not many, said Elliott Marcus, associate commissioner for the department’s food safety bureau. “Every health code across the country, and probably the world, says that you shouldn’t have bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food,” he said. And lime in the beer bottle, simply put, is considered food.