City Health Inspectors Defend Bleach Tactic In Street Vendor Enforcement

By: Alliyah Sims | KDVR FOX31

DENVER (KDVR) — A viral video showing a Denver health inspector pouring bleach on a street vendor’s food has sparked outrage, but the city said it was the last option after weeks of warnings, citations and failed attempts to shut down the operation.

In total, more than 100 lbs of food have been thrown out, much of it stored unsafely.

“I never imagined that was going to happen,” said the owner of Tacolorado, Isidro Garcia Barrette.

He said he showed up Saturday night to work like any other night, but never expected inspectors to approach the way they did.

“I never imagined that supposed inspectors, I don’t know if they are inspectors or not, because they never identified themselves,” said Isidro.

He said they told him to shut down just as he and his staff were already packing up for the night.

Isidro said, “We were already taking it down when the lady threw the liquid Clorox on our food.”

Danica Lee, Denver’s public health director, said, “We received really horrible comments from folks who don’t know the whole story. There’s even been threats to our staff and the work we do.”

Lee said the video doesn’t show the whole story

“So the clip that went viral, unfortunately, was a very small snippet without any context of an unfortunate action that was occurring,” she said.

DDPHE said the vendor has operated across multiple Denver locations and beyond, ignoring three cease and desist orders, fines and multiple warnings.

“We don’t have to use bleach, actually, very often, so this was a better than unusual situation,” said Lee. “The vendor had been warned multiple times and was in the process of trying to pack food up and lock it up. We did have to take a measure to actually destroy the food.”

Inspectors found raw meat sitting out, no sanitizer, inadequate refrigeration and workers washing their hands in a bucket of dirty water.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT KDVR FOX31