By Sarah Ryley
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
RED HOOK — Honduras Maya, a restaurant owned by one of the vendors that serves Latin American food on weekends at the Red Hook Ball Fields, was closed down by the Health Department this week after an inspection stemming from the city’s crackdown on the vendors.

The shutdown could merely be a taste of what’s to come if the 13 food vendors at the ball fields fail to meet strict health code requirements by this weekend. And the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation may not extend the vendors’ temporary permit — which officially expires after Labor Day — until the soccer season ends in late October, as earlier promised.

“Our legal department is looking into the feasibility of extending it,� said Parks Department spokesman Philip Abramson. “Right now the permit expires Labor Day.�

Cesar Fuentes, executive director of the Food Vendors Committee of Red Hook Park, said health inspectors are expected to start issuing fines — or shutting down vendors — this weekend for not meeting requirements like providing hot and cold running water, refrigeration, and preparing food in commercial kitchens rather than at home.

Suany Carcamo, the owner of Honduras Maya, has been operating a Honduran food stand specializing in baleadas at the ball fields for more than a decade. Fuentes said her restaurant was investigated by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as a follow-up to a letter she submitted to prove that she was preparing her food for the stand in a city-certified commercial kitchen — her own restaurant.

The Park Slope restaurant received 122 violation points, compared to the citywide average of 14 points, according to the inspection report. Among the 20 violations listed were: missing Choking First Aid, Alcohol and Pregnancy, and Wash Hands signs; evidence of flying insects and mice; toilet facility not maintained and provided with toilet paper; and wiping cloths dirty or not stored in proper sanitizing equipment.

The owners were not available for comment by press time. An employee, when reached by phone, confirmed that the restaurant had been shut down.

But Carcamo could be viewed as one of the lucky vendors. She is one of only two that also owns a restaurant, while many of the others are struggling to find a commercial or community kitchen certified by the Health Department where they can prepare their food.

“The report from my vendors is that it is basically very, very difficult to do,� said Fuentes. After word traveled that Honduras Maya was shut down, “a lot of people were denying vendors the use [of their facilities] out of fear that the Department of Health would enforce harshly.

“Anyone who doesn’t have that letter wouldn’t be allowed to sell,� he said.

Late yesterday evening, Fuentes was also struggling with getting together enough portable sinks — the plastic kind that are pumped by foot, with a built-in paper towel rack — because the Health Department is now requiring five onsite. He said he has three, rented at $150 each for four weeks — and just heard a rumor that two may have been stolen.

And that’s just the start of his budgetary woes.

“Running water would be impossible to provide, with the exception of a capital investment in place [on the part of the Parks Department], in which plumbing would be added in the park so that we would have access to running water,� said Fuentes. “And a freezer truck, it can very easily run up to $35,000–$40,000 apiece. My budget for the group is just that and that’s including everything.

“We already are in a deficit and we’re scrambling to find additional money. Just by meeting one of the requirements of the Department of Health we will be broke.�

“It’s really for the better for everyone,� said Health Department spokeswoman Celina De Leon, noting that the requirements are in place to protect people from food-borne illnesses.

Fuentes points out that the Health Department’s inspection did not result from a food related complaint. “Their explanation of this sudden enforcement is based on the fact that our humble affair went under their radar until we became prominent.�

This year has certainly been the most eventful in the 33 years that the vendors have been serving up authentic Latin American dishes to hungry soccer and baseball players, and increasingly food connoisseurs. Word of the sumptuous eats at push cart prices has made it into all the major media outlets in the city, on television shows dedicated to food, and even in the “Lonely Planet� guide to Brooklyn.

But the Parks Department started to take notice, too, threatening in the middle of summer to open the vendors’ permit up for bid. Abramson said the permit would likely be a six-year agreement, adding that “we don’t just want hot dog vendors, we want the continuation of the kind of service and the kind of food (Latin American) that the vendors provide.�

Then, in early August, the Health Department started pushing health codes on the ball fields, offering free classes to more than 60 vendors and their assistants and making weekly visits to the vendors to teach them how to be in compliance. Now, it appears that the department’s enforcement measures could soon have teeth, although De Leon denied plans to start issuing fines.

“It’s been a sweet and sour year, and yes all the vendors feel scared,� said Fuentes.

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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