Food fridge remains open, despite concerns

By Nadine Cafaro
Posted 12/21/22

The fridge outside Empanada Nirvana is still running as of last week, according to the businesses’ Instagram. This is despite a remedy violation order sent out in October.

Last month, owner …

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Food fridge remains open, despite concerns

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The fridge outside Empanada Nirvana is still running as of last week, according to the businesses’ Instagram. This is despite a remedy violation order sent out in October.

Last month, owner Nelson Pantoja noted that the health department gave him specific rules to run the fridge, which was later confirmed. Orange County Department of Health public health sanitarian Tim Gaeta noted that the fridge must be locked when the business closes. On top of this, food has to be labeled and there needs to be a thermometer present with temperature monitoring. Lastly, food needed to be from an “approved source,” or a facility permitted to produce food.

The bigger issue is that the fridge is outside the Village of Walden’s code. The code is Chapter 214, NYS Code Section 108, section 214-4F, 308.2.2. It reads, “In no instance shall upholstered furniture, carpeting, mattresses, box springs, clothing or any such fabric items, dishwashers, refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, stoves, ovens or any such indoor appliance be located in yards or yard enclosures or on porches where they are subject to weather deterioration or exposed to public view.”

Over the past year, some Village of Walden board members have publicly stated their issues with the fridge, while others have supported it, including Mayor John Ramos who supplied the fridge for Nelson to begin. Ramos further hopes to change the village’s code so it can continue to run.

Village Manager John Revella stated the fridge is currently an ongoing process. “The status is in question still. Waiting for the building department to follow up. We have some transition going on there now,” Revella wrote in an email.

In early December, former Walden mayor Susan Taylor made some comments to the board of trustees at a meeting about the fridge. “The minute that food is put into that refrigerator, you break the chain of custody of that food,” said Taylor, regarding the apparent lack of monitoring of the fridge.

Taylor, a previous business owner, claimed she just wants it to be conducted in a safe manner.
“It’s not about the business that it sits outside, it’s about food safety and food security,” Taylor noted. “The last thing you want to do is have someone get sick, because the food isn’t kept at the proper temperature, especially when the refrigerator is kept outside at 80-90 degree weather. That’s not a commercial refrigerator, it’s a household refrigerator. The compressor isn’t even a quarter of the size of a compressor that’s in a commercial refrigerator. So making it something else other than concerns about how this has been implemented is ridiculous and diversionary. What you’re talking about is food safety.”

Taylor said when she ran her bakery, she monitored the temperature of her walk-in refrigerator every hour because “that door was always opened and shut probably 100 times a day.” She also kept a log to show the health department.

“So I think that’s where the concern is, that’s at least what I’m hearing. And to make it about anything else is ridiculous,” Taylor added. “You’re talking about people’s lives and people’s safety. We live in a different world. I would hate to think anyone would go in and tamper with any of that food, but you don’t know because you’re not monitoring it. Especially if the thing is opened all night long.”