Le Cave’s Bakery, the beloved south-side doughnut shop, has just two weeks to make a number of repairs before the Health Department refers it to the Pima County Attorney’s Office.
That’s according to three recent failed inspection reports provided to the Star, the most recent of which states that “failure to complete the required corrections will result in referral to the (county attorney) to issue a demand letter for compliance.”
In mid-December, a county inspector noted 11 deficiencies during a change-of-owner inspection. Those included problems with several sinks, damage to the building’s walls and windows, cracked and potholed floors, and a refrigerator that did not keep food adequately cooled. The inspector also observed a live mouse.
That inspection was the result of the bakery losing its permit late last year because of nonpayment, according to a Health Department letter.
By the first follow-up inspection, on Jan. 17, just a few of those issues had been resolved. By the third inspection, about half had been addressed and the report notes that if the remainder are not remedied by Feb. 14, the referral to the county attorney would be sent.
Owner Rudy Molina Jr. told the Star that it won’t come to that, and that while he’ll “make arrangements” to deal with the remaining issues, he doesn’t think it’s fair he has to.
Molina said that the problems noted by the inspector have to do with structural and equipment issues, not anything that compromises the health and safety of customers. He also noted that the bakery received a good inspection rating last June when conditions there were more or less the same, which online inspection records confirm.
“They approved it just six months ago, now they’re saying it’s not acceptable anymore,” he said, chalking it up to recent county health code changes the bakery now has to comply with because it lost its old permit.
David Ludwig, head of the county inspection program, took issue with Molina’s claim about the recent failed inspections, saying that “there is nothing on that report that wasn’t in the old code.”
After the December inspection, Molina appealed the county’s decision to make him reapply for a new permit, which triggered the change-of-owner inspection, and that appeal was denied last month, according to county records.
In early 2016, the Health Department briefly shut the business, citing “gross unsanitary conditions.” In the wake of the closure, Molina said he spent around $25,000 to get the nearly 75-year-old building into compliance. Declining sales since then make it more difficult this time to pay for mandated repairs, he added.
Before the 2016 closure, the bakery, which was first opened in the mid-1930s, had exclusively received inspection ratings of good and excellent since the early 2000s.
“If we hadn’t been doing things the right way and living up to standards, practicing business as we should, we wouldn’t have been in business that long,” Molina said.
