DPH Mustache-Net Crackdown in Cobble Hill

Published on Thursday, April 1, 2010, by Lessley Anderson / Edit Post

The artisanal cocktail movement suffered heavy casualties last night, when New York City Department of Health officials cited several restaurants in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn for old-timey facial hair code violations. For people preparing food and drink, state law requires that beards, sideburns, and mustaches be protected by a "mustache net." However, in recent years, a trend toward aggressive nostalgia in the hospitality industry has encouraged whimsical mustaches at the expense of hygiene. There is often an equally compromising accumulation of Victorian clutter: phonographs, velvet flocked wallpaper, tarnished medical equipment, and pinned butterfly wings that officials warn can attract dust and crumbs.

The crackdown was a surprise to restaurant employees—one bartender apparently panicked and attempted to hide behind a taxidermied warthog. However, many of those cited have remained defiant.

"I'd be happy to have my staff wear mustache nets—if I could find a sustainable source," said a representative of one of the establishments targeted in the raid. "And so far, I have not found a mustache net farm whose mustache netting practices I believe in."

Image source: Flickr member westerndave under Creative Commons

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POST A COMMENT |4 Comments

COMMENT

  • I'm thinkin' somebody gotcha - April Fools!

  • i'm a waiter in a restaurant, and i've begun an odyssey to grow a handlebar mustache and pork-chop sideburns. i'm very well kempt, and have never had a hair of mine fall into a plate of food. i've worked in a restaurant for over 4 years. my hair style is what would be described my many as "shaggy", "hockey hair", or "like one of the beatles, except southern".
    where i understand the health...+READ

    i'm a waiter in a restaurant, and i've begun an odyssey to grow a handlebar mustache and pork-chop sideburns. i'm very well kempt, and have never had a hair of mine fall into a plate of food. i've worked in a restaurant for over 4 years. my hair style is what would be described my many as "shaggy", "hockey hair", or "like one of the beatles, except southern".
    where i understand the health concerns with mustachioed men handling food, it's not like people with mustaches don't clean themselves. it's in our best interests to be presentable to our customers, or our tips suffer.
    this is just another way for the government to sanction bigotry.-COLLAPSE

  • Absolutely ridiculous. Isn't this a matter of free choice of the consumer when they walk into a bar or restaurant and see who's serving them.? In the kitchen though, it's a different story. Beard hairs look a lot like pubes; I don't want to find one in my plate of food, for sure! Give me a clean shaven, or female, cook please.

  • all employees must wash their hands and mustache before returning to work.