President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, was cited by inspectors for poor maintenance, a year after the exclusive resort was already cited for having foods in stock that could make people sick, DailyMail.com has learned.
Like every business that serves food and provides lodgings, the president’s club, which costs $200,000 in initiation fees alone, is checked yearly by the state of Florida.
Mar-a-Lago is subject to several separate inspections for two restaurants – one for members and the other for banquets as well as a beach bar and a bed-and-breakfast where Trump occasionally hosts heads of state and celebrities such as Regis Philbin, Charlie Sheen and Oprah Winfrey.
Now, state records obtained by DailyMail.com show the bed-and-breakfast wing of Trump’s ‘Winter White House’ needed emergency repairs in order to pass the latest inspection in November and had several violations in the club’s kitchens.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, was hit with several violations and cited for poor maintenance in November. Pictured: Trump at his office at Mar-a-Lago on Thanksgiving
The bed-and-breakfast wing at Mar-a-Lago (pictured) had improper smoke detectors for the hearing impaired and slabs of concrete missing from a staircase, which could cause a fall
Trump’s club, located on a beachfront property where the historic main house was built in the 1920s for Post cereals heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, was cited on November 8 for two violations deemed high-priority: the lack of smoke detectors capable of alerting the hearing impaired through flashing bright lights; and slabs of concrete missing from a staircase, exposing steel a reinforcing bar that could cause a fall.
‘High priority lodging violations are those which could pose a direct or significant threat to the public health, safety, or welfare,’ the inspection code reads.
The club was re-checked on November 17, a week before Trump’s return for his Thanksgiving vacation, and this time ‘met inspection standards,’ according to the state inspection report.
Club General Manager Bernd Lembcke did not return calls for comment left on his answering machine at Mar-a-Lago, and neither did Alan Garten, the chief legal officer of Trump’s private businesses.
The November inspections of the club’s two main kitchens, meanwhile, yielded a total 15 violations.
Among the no-nos were the staff’s failure to track the freshness of potentially hazardous foods, including curry sauce with a use by date of October 21 pulled from freezer and improperly marked, milk stored at 49 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the safe temperature of 41 degrees, and cases of hot dogs that were stored on the ground of the walk-in freezer.
The club’s two main kitchens had 15 violations: Staff failed to track the freshness of potentially hazardous foods, including curry sauce dated October 21. Pictured: Chefs at the club in 2005
However, the kitchens passed the inspections on the first try.
That wasn’t the case when, just days before the state visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Mar-a-Lago in January 2016, inspectors found sushi ready for consumption without the obligatory treatment for parasites and cited the club for storing food in two broken down coolers at temperatures that spoiled fresh ingredients.
At the time, inspectors found 13 health violations, according to recently published documents – a record for the club. The inspectors returned a week later to make sure things were fixed.
Before he became president, the billionaire was known to be involved personally in the day-to-day operations of Mar-a-Lago.
It wasn’t rare to see him check out the kitchen’s cleanliness and directing floor personnel. Then, Mar-a-Lago passed inspections with flying colors.
But as Trump jumped into presidential politics, so did the number of health violations.
Trump used to be involved in the day-to-day operations, but as he jumped into presidential politics, so did the number of health violations. There were only two violations in the kitchens in 2015 – the early stages of his campaign. pictured: Trump with kitchen staff in 2006
There were just two violations in the kitchens in 2015, in the early stages of his campaign.
Finished in 1927 after three years of construction, Mar-a-Lago was a classic example of homes along the Eastern Seaboard constructed for ‘robber barons’ at a time when many Americans went hungry.
Built for socialite Merriweather Post and her family, the property stretches from the sands of the Atlantic Ocean to the Intracoastal Waterways to the west.
The house was eventually donated to the National Park Service in 1973 because it was costly to maintain. The federal government, however, returned it to the family eight years later, and Trump bought it for $5 million in 1985.
Facing financial difficulties in the early 1990s, records show that Trump sold the club to a business entity he controlled for $12 million then turned the property into a private club that, unlike the others in Palm Beach, didn’t discriminate on the basis of ethnicity and religion.
Pictured: Inspection report on Mar-a-Lago’s kitchens, where the inspector cited the club for having out-of-date curry
Pictured: Inspection report on Mar-a-Lago’s bed-and-breakfast lodgings, where the resort was cited for having no hearing-impaired smoke detectors