One-third of US sports venues have high-level safety violations and unsanitary conditions that could lead to a foodborne illness, an investigation has found.
A report by ESPN’s Outside the Lines found a number of infractions including beer raining from ceilings, beef blood dripping on a shelf, employees wiping their faces and then using their bare hands to handle food, and even a live mouse inside a box of Cracker Jack.
Spectrum Center – home of the basketball team the Charlotte Hornets in North Carolina – was the worst offender with 92 percent of its outlets inspected cited for high-level violations.
The report also found that nine of the stadiums had worse violation rates than the restaurants in the surrounding community.
Health experts say the sheer number of people exposed to the food at such a fast rate could lead to widespread outbreaks of of illnesses including norovirus, salmonella and listeria.
An investigation has found that on-third of US sports venues have high-level safety violations. Pictured: Hot dogs at Salt River Fields, unrelated to the report
In the analysis, ESPN’s reporters looked at nearly 17,000 food-safety inspection reports from 2016 and 2017 at 111 US baseball, basketball, football and hockey arenas.
They found that 28 percent of the venues had ‘one or more high-level violations’ at at least half of the inspected outlets.
The violations were described as ‘the type of unsanitary conditions or omissions that can pose a risk for a foodborne illness’.
Spectrum Center was found to be the worst of all the stadiums with 23 of its 25 outlets inspected having at least one high-safety violation over two years.
A December 2016 report noted that beer was leaking from the ceiling into the bar area at the Front Court Restaurant and Bar, which is only available to Premium and Luxury ticket holders.
Another report stated a violation for bare handing food after inspectors saw a bartender use bare hands to pick up a line and garnish drinks.
Additionally, there was no proper documentation of when food was safe to cook, to serve, or to be thrown away.
Levy Restaurants, which handles food at Spectrum, told the Charlotte Observer: ‘any concern that was identified [in food inspections] was corrected immediately.’
Closely following were: Palace of Auburn Hills (since closed) in Auburn Hills, Michigan; American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas; Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina; and Broncos Stadium at Mile High in Denver, Colorado.
Patricia Buck, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention, told ESPN that stadiums carry higher risks than a fast food chain or a restaurants due to how many people are served in a short amount of time.
‘There will be thousands of people at the stadium and there will be maybe 100 at a restaurant, so the sheer number of people being exposed is going to be higher,’ she told the network.
‘It would tend to be riskier if something like contaminated romaine lettuce was going to be served on a taco,’ she added in reference to the E coli outbreak linked to romaine that has sickened 59 people so far in 15 states.
There were other bizarre scenarios described in the report.
At Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, which was the ninth-worst stadium, a health inspector found a live mouse inside a commercial-size bag of Cracker Jack in September 2016.
There was also ‘five live medium-sized cockroaches’ stuck on a sticky pad during the same visit.
Just two weeks prior, inspectors found around 15 bags of cookies and chips with chew holes from mice, a dead mouse next to the hot water heater and a live mouse stuck on a trap next to the popcorn machine.
At Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, inspectors in April 2017 found food ‘being prepared on top of a trash receptacle’.
One bright light of the report was that 73 of the stadiums had as good or better violation rates than the restaurants in their respective communities.
Coming out on top was Oracle Arena, home of the Golden State Warriors, in Oakland, California.
Inspectors found just one-high level violation and the biggest ones were ‘faulty plumbing fixtures’ and’ inadequate handwashing facilities’ at one concession stand.
Rounding out the top five were: State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia; NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas; Bradley Center (since closed) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.