Terry's Cafe Shut Down

Terry's Cafe was ordered closed today by Timberlake Fire Chief, Jack Krill. Along with the closure of Terry's, two other premises owned or operated by Chan Karupiah received citations relating to fire and safety codes, but were allowed to continue operations.

The Buttonhook Restaurant along with JD's Bar were both inspected, then reinspected failing both times from numerous alleged code violations. JD's was given until July 30 to comply while the Buttonhook Restaurant was given until July 16. Fines have been levied against Mr. Karupiah which according to code, start at $10 per day for the first week, $50 the second week, $100 the third week and so on.

According to Chief Krill, not only were the violations not corrected, but new ones were found as well. The Buttonhook Restaurant has a large full basement which contains lawnmowers, fuel and other combustibles that will have to be removed. It is not known at this time whether those items belong to Chan or are still owned by Waterford Park Homes, LLC.

It was noted that unlike the Captain's wheel which was inspected earlier this spring, the three above mentioned properties have not moved to make corrections. Chief Krill noted that the 'Wheel spent over $5000 in order to comply and that it would be unfair to let the others have a pass when the Captain's Wheel immediately moved to correct deficiencies. We will follow this closely for further developments.

Postscript 7/20:

Further inspections after owners got after their staff for failing to cover deficiencies, both JD's and the Buttonhook were deemed far enough along for an extension. It turns out that many of the older restaurants in the Bayview/Athol area have out of date fire suppression hoods, but the five mentioned by Chief Krill, have until the spring of 2010 to replace the outmoded ones with state of the art hoods. These replacements are extremely expensive and replacing them in the middle of the tourist season was considered impractical.

Other businesses that failed their original inspections were the Pastime Tavern and White Pine Cafe, both in Athol.