Third El Dorado restaurant gets health permit pulled for ‘flagrant’ COVID-19 violations
El Dorado County officials suspended a third restaurant’s health permit Tuesday over overt violations of COVID-19 safety protocols, including continuing to offer indoor dining and not requiring customers or staff to wear face masks.
Danette’s Brick Oven Pub “flagrantly” ignored critical details of the business-specific COVID-19 prevention plan it submitted as a condition of reopening, said Jeffrey Warren, the manager of El Dorado County’s Environmental Management Department. The restaurant at 2875 Ray Lawyer Drive in Placerville — known for its sandwiches, burgers and brick-oven pizzas — racked up numerous complaints from area residents, Warren said.
“We have made numerous visits to the facility for education and outreach, but the facility was found to be flagrantly non-compliant and we recently received (three) complaints in the last week,” Warren wrote in an email.
Danette’s, which did not immediately respond to The Sacramento Bee’s request for comment, has posted several Facebook memes criticizing the state’s social distancing restrictions for restaurants and bars. When El Dorado County restaurants reopened for indoor dining in May, Danette’s told customers to “leave your masks at home” despite the state instructing people to wear face coverings when not eating or drinking.
The county suspended health permits for Apple Bistro in Placerville and Cafe El Dorado in the town of El Dorado on July 31 after both blatantly disregarded state reopening criteria such as social distancing and requiring employees to wear masks. Both have remained open in defiance of the county order to close; an attorney for Apple Bistro called the permit revocation “domestic terrorism” in an interview with The Bee earlier this month.
“It is unfortunate that we have some facilities that are not willing to comply as our goal is to continue educating them on how to stay open and safe during this economic hardship time,” Warren wrote in an email.
Restaurants whose permits have been suspended have 15 days to request a hearing with the Environmental Management Department. If they remain open after the permit is revoked, they can be fined up to $500 per day by El Dorado County.
El Dorado County health officials have issued notices of violation to Apple Bistro and Cafe El Dorado and are compiling a monthly invoice for the fines.
Approximately 5 million Americans and 562,000 Californians have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Tuesday, according to The COVID Tracking Project and Johns Hopkins University CSSE. More than 164,000 people nationwide and 10,000 in California have died from the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
A Placerville man between the ages of 50 and 64 was reported Monday to have died due to COVID-19 complications, the second El Dorado County resident whose life was claimed by the disease. Though the county’s rate of infection remains relatively low, it had 26 new cases Monday, including six in Placerville.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 4:45 PM.