ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.- Ferg’s Sports Bar in downtown St. Petersburg hopes to reopen as normal today after being shut down for 42 health violations.
The popular sports bar plans to reopen just one day after investigators found the violations, nine of which were considered “high-priority violations.”
According to the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the violations included roaches, roach droppings and roach egg casings behind the bar, salt and pepper shakers had roach droppings in the grinders, and inspectors found small flying insects in the kitchen area and live ants on the coolers. More live bugs, possibly maggots, were found in the bar’s beer bottle bucket.
Bar staff and owners (25 people total) worked throughout the night to address each of the issues and Ferg’s owner, Mark Ferguson, said a health inspector is expected to be back on site early this morning. He hopes to open the bar back up at its normal time of 11 a.m.
According to Ferguson, these are the first violations the bar has received in the 24 years he has owned it. He has not received any complaints by customers about getting sick from the food.
At one point the inspection report said, “observed approximately 30 live roaches behind white chest cooler next to walk in cooler.” It also went on to say there were open lid packages lying on roach droppings.
Basic violations included food being made outside, open dumpster lid, improper storing of napkins and utensils, and various other cleaning violations.
This is just one of three Ferg’s locations. There is one in Tampa and Orlando. This St. Petersburg Ferg’s is a popular sports bar for Rays fans to come before and after games because it is so close to Tropicana Fields.
The owner is confident that the sports bar will reopen today after the health inspector finishes reevaluating the bar.
