After a thorough health inspection by the Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Health (DPH), three restaurants within one shopping plaza on the corner of Sixth Street and Alexandria Avenue have been suspended from operating while 30 percent of the county’s 45 restaurants in Koreatown were found with some level of unsanitary issues.
In total, 14 Koreatown restaurants have been ordered to shut down following the inspection after failing to implement proper pest control, according to DPH.
DPH’s inspection, conducted for five days between Aug. 8 and 12 across the county, found 73 restaurants in Koreatown (represented by five zip codes, including 90004, 90005, 90006, 90010, 90012, 90013, 90019 and 90020) which violated the county’s sanitary conditions. The results are accessible on the DPH website.
Many of the businesses could not meet the county’s conditions were only hit with “minor” level of violation, but 22 were found with pest infestation or rodents. Fourteen of those 22 businesses have been suspended from daily operations.
Among the suspended businesses in the mall on Sixth Street and Alexandria Avenue, two traditional Korean restaurants stopped serving customers on Aug. 10 while a popular Korean-Chinese restaurant in the same plaza closed on the following day. Another restaurant in the mall also received a penalty for being found with rodents.
“It’s difficult to keep the bugs out of the businesses during the summer,” said one business owner in the plaza. “Korean food is made with a lot of spices. The businesses here share the same structure, but are only divided by the walls. Cleaning would hardly solve the problem.”
Other eateries in Koreatown, including a bakery, café, buffet and a barbeque restaurant, have already stopped operations after the inspection.
Even among the restaurants that remained open, eight of them have been warned for poor pest control.
By Koo Hyun Chung
