Joy division: City's suit stuns Chinatown eatery

THE CITY has filed a lawsuit threatening to shut down Joy Tsin Lau, the Chinatown mainstay where nearly 100 lawyers and law students were sickened in February in one of Philadelphia's largest reported outbreaks of food-borne illness.

The victims, many of them personal-injury lawyers, were laid low for several days with severe vomiting and diarrhea after a Lunar New Year banquet.

The eight-course dinner was a fundraiser for a group of Temple University law students, the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association. A spokesman for the city Health Department said the diners' distress was likely caused by a norovirus.

In the court filing, dated May 6, the city deems Joy Tsin Lau a "serious and immediate hazard" and "a public health nuisance." It asks the Common Pleas Court to issue Joy Tsin Lau a cease-and-desist order for failing to address numerous health violations.

The suit follows three years of inspection reports portraying Joy Tsin Lau as chronically failing to meet health standards.

Joy Tsin Lau's owner, Mabel Chi Chan, said she was stunned by the suit. She said the Health Department last visited her restaurant April 18, two days after the last failed inspection, and granted it permission to reopen.

"They said everything was 100 percent OK," Chan said. "I don't understand. When the Health Department says something is not right, we change it. We do everything to be right."

Beverly Penn, senior attorney for the city, said she could not comment about the matter.

Chan, a well-known neighborhood figure and philanthropist, has operated Joy Tsin Lau, on Race Street near 10th, for more than three decades. She said business dropped off after news of the banquet became public.

"Our employees are very nice people with families," she said. "It's been very hard; they don't know English. The Health Department came to teach us how to clean up the restaurant. They said we're doing good now."

Thomas Betz, a friend of Chan's and pastor of Holy Redeemer Chinese Catholic Church in Chinatown, said the lawsuit "seems to be a deliberate effort to destroy Chinatown's most beloved and venerable restaurant."

The city has threatened to close Joy Tsin Lau several times in the past decade. Each time, the threat was withdrawn after the restaurant was found in compliance.

It's unclear if the Feb. 27 outbreak of food poisoning played a role in the city's filing suit.

But three earlier inspections are noted in the city's suit. One report, dated Feb. 10, two weeks before the outbreak, found serious violations including a lack of soap in the employee restroom and food held at unsafe temperatures.

On March 2, the Health Department sent another inspector, who cited 41 violations that included mouse droppings on work tables, chicken feet thawed improperly, food held at bacteria-friendly temperatures and cooks who did not properly wash hands.

The inspector asked Joy Tsin Lau to close until it could comply with the health code. The next day, the Health Department allowed it to reopen.

This week, the department released the findings of an April 16 follow-up inspection that uncovered 35 violations.