010378 Inspector Of NY City Meat Got Drunk At JobMarch 24, 2001Washington - A federal worker in charge of beef and chicken inspections for New Yorkers was found drunk on the job last year, an investigator told a congressional committee. Three city meat plants have been closed in the FBI's probe of the food safety program, but officials refused to identify them. The meat inspector allegedly got drunk in the midst of a crisis caused by the partial shutdown of nine cooling units in the 14th Street Meatpacking District. "We arrived about 2:30 p.m. and found just one inspector and he was drunk," Roger Viadero, inspector general of the U.S. Agriculture Department, said in testimony before the Senate's Agriculture Committee. Viadero said his confidence in the entire New York area meat safety inspection program was shaken. "This is a major metropolitan area," Viadero said, his voice rising in anger. It's "a bit incredible to believe that management did not know about this . . . Nothing is more important than the integrity of our inspection system," added Viadero, who said problems in New York "just blows my mind." The breakdown in cooling equipment, which began on July 6 and lasted until July 13, caused temperatures in some coolers to rise from 41 degrees to 61 degrees. Beth Gaston, a USDA spokeswoman, declined to offer additional details on the drunken meat inspector. "I am deeply troubled by these reports from New York," said Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican who chairs the Senate's Agriculture Committee.
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