Council votes 7 to 0 to shut down St. Paul restaurant

Repeated sightings of roaches and rat droppings at a St. Paul restaurant over the past few years led the City Council on Wednesday to shut down Kim Huoy Chor.

It was the first time in recent memory that the council revoked all of a restaurant's licenses solely because of health-code violations.

Jay Benanav, the attorney for the restaurant owner and also a former City Council member, offered Wednesday to surrender the licenses and shut down immediately.

Council members didn't know exactly how to react to that but went ahead with a 7-0 vote to revoke the licenses.

After the vote, Benanav didn't have much to say. "They took their action," he said.

When asked about the offer to surrender the licenses, Benanav said it was meant as a good-faith gesture.

Since its opening in 2007, Kim Huoy Chor, 1664 University Av. W., has been docked several times for serious code violations. Among those observed were cold foods being held at wrong temperatures, roach infestations, rat droppings and cooked food stored in boxes that held raw meat.

Several reports of illness from eating at the restaurant were relayed to the city from the state Department of Health, the most recent happening last Wednesday, according to city inspection reports.

The city sent owner Vuthy Taing a letter Sept. 17 notifying him of the intent to revoke the restaurant's license.

"Since you obtained a license, your establishment has repeated critical and non-critical violations that reflect a chronic failure to follow the food safety codes and pose a danger to public health," according to the notice.

Taing requested a public hearing and went before the council last week.

At the hearing, neither Taing nor Benanav challenged the violations. "It's a very sobering day for me," Taing said. "We have taken our eyes off the ball and have dropped it. We apologize for that."

He explained steps that he was taking to improve the situation, from new checklists to hiring a new general manager. The council postponed the vote for a week.

But a reinspection on Friday, two days after the hearing, still showed violations.

Taing met with officials from the Department of Safety and Inspections on Monday to see if there was an alternative sanction that didn't mean permanent closure. There wasn't.

"The department doesn't feel comfortable with a recommendation shy of revocation," Rachel Tierney, an assistant city attorney who works with the inspections department, told the council Wednesday.

The City Council doesn't revoke bar and restaurant licenses frequently. It revoked the licenses of the Moonlight Magic bar in August and Diva's Overtime Lounge in 2007.

In Kim Huoy Chor's case, Mayor Chris Coleman will sign revocation papers, which then will be hand-delivered to Taing. Once that happens, the eatery will need to close. That's expected to happen Thursday.

In other action Wednesday, the council approved Coleman's appointment of Sara Grewing to be city attorney.

Chris Havens • 612-673-4148