The Lost Abbey Tasting Room during better days | Flickr photo by Sally_Monster
[5/3 Update: Per Osterfeld: “DOH has decided that this is a state issue and if it’s okay with the state, it’s okay with them. We were eight hours from ripping out the bar to cut drain paths. Well, the ’employees must wash hand signs did just arrive.'” All’s well that ends well . . .]
(San Marcos, CA) – Just two months after Pennsylvania beer establishments went through those infamous beer raids, the San Diego area has got its own dose of government inspections.
The situations are very different but one can’t help but think back to what just happened around Philadelphia- one complaint leading to several surprise visits around town from uniformed officials. They may not be toting guns this time but it is happening all over again in and around San Diego. This time, the targets are breweries.
At the forefront is Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey. The brewery was told to cease and desist on offering beer from the tap last week. Tomme Arthur wrote a long post last week about what went down and just penned another this morning.
The Lost Abbey’s Media Liaison, Sage Osterfeld, explains that the issue revolves around “plan checks,” something that the brewery failed to file, not health code violations. “We need to show on a piece of paper where our three basin sink is, where our dishwasher is, where the floor drain is and that we have sufficient lighting, etc.” Osterfeld noted that no area breweries had been hit with any health code violations to his knowledge and that it was all about these plan checks.
Based on the fee schedule at the San Diego County Plan Check and Construction Unit site, the local municipality stands to make thousands from the sweeps if it widens its visits to more breweries as it has already started to do. It isn’t the cost of filing that will hit brewers the hardest though, it will be all the construction and maintenance costs that go into meeting the paper criteria.
Arthur wrote this morning, “I spoke to the guys from Mother Earth Brew Co. in Vista this weekend as well as Mark over at Oceanside Aleworks. Seems they are both concerned about the potential costs associated with a shut down and lack of tasting room revenues. Since this went down last week, I have maintained this is exactly the sort of thing that hurts the smaller brewers the most.”
Osterfeld mentioned that this will negatively impact other local non-brewery businesses as well. “There are several beer tour companies that take people from brewery to brewery on weekends. We get 200 – 300 people on a Saturday on these tours. All of them are small operations run by a couple of people.” If a brewery can’t offer tastings, it isn’t as much of a destination.
Despite everything, The Lost Abbey is moving forward with plans to host its 4th Anniversary party this weekend and doesn’t expect that last week’s developments will negatively impact the festivities. Samplings should return there this month.
“We’ve already had plans drawn, we’re cutting concrete and tiling behind the bar this week. And we’ve ordered the ’employees must wash hands signs’ for the bathroom. Pretty much everything else is within code so we’re hoping to be back in business within two weeks.”
And all of this is happening because of one anonymous complaint.
On the necessity of the health code requirements to begin with, Osterfeld says, “Brewery sanitation is really good compared to most restaurants and beer isn’t known for passing e-coli, H1N1, SARS, etc. — so it’s a pain.”
“If you count when Stone was here, we’ve had tastings in here for fourteen years. Amazingly, nobody has died.”
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