Business repeatedly doused in cooking oil

ST. THOMAS — His business smells like a fried chicken box that has been left in the sun for a week, and John Olinsky is mad.
 
Used cooking oil stains the garage door at John’s Repair Shop. Shiny, smelly puddles of oil are drawing flies, six days after a 50-gallon trash can — which held Nisky Center Kentucky Fried Chicken’s used cooking oil — tipped over on a balcony of the restaurant.
 
This is not the first time his shop has gotten a cooking oil shower, Olinsky says.
 
For the last four years, Olinsky has been repairing motorcycles, cars and generators in a shop directly below the Nisky KFC. Every few months, he says, oil has spilled from the tiny grease trap suspended above his garage door, which keeps the oil that flows into the restaurant’s drains from washing into the St. Thomas sewer system.
 
Olinsky said that two months ago, the grease trap leaked for 15 days, dousing his shop in foul-smelling grease. He said he ended up fixing the trap himself.
 
Then, on Friday, the garbage can employees were using to store used oil tipped over, bathing the entrance to the shop — and Olinsky’s generator — in old chicken grease.
 
Virgin Islands restaurants are required to store spent grease in an approved sealed container. A plastic garbage can does not qualify.
 
Hussein Javadi, regional manager for Kazi Foods Inc. — the second-largest Kentucky Fried Chicken chain in the U.S. — said the company has cleaned up the mess at the garage and fixed the storage problem.
 
Olinsky said that Javadi initially refused to clean up the spill, which occurred at about 8 a.m. Friday.
 
But Department of Planning and Natural Resources officials say they told Javadi the restaurant has seven days to mop up the mess according to Environmental Protection Agency standards.
 
The used cooking oil is an environmental threat, EPA officials say, and should be cleaned according to the agency’s standards.
 
A crew of laborers came to the repair shop Monday afternoon, according to Olinsky. They shoveled some grease into five-gallon buckets, then left, leaving the buckets behind, he said.
 
“I’m a small business, so there’s not a lot I can do except clean up this mess,” he said.
 
Olinsky said that he has asked the government for help but has been frustrated with the response he has received. He said DPNR Environmental Specialist Kent Bernier Jr. initially said that the oil would be cleaned up immediately, gave him his card, and told him to call if the issue was not resolved. But Bernier was arrested on domestic violence charges Saturday and has been out of work this week. Olinsky said that on Wednesday, he got in touch with David Simon, Bernier’s boss, who told him that KFC had been given a week to clean up the mess.
 
DPNR spokesman Jamal Nielsen said that, when Bernier’s report on the spill is complete, a violation notice may be issued to the restaurant.
 
“Once we have a report in hand, it will go to our legal team, and fines and penalties will be assessed,” he said.
 
Simon said the issue has been turned over to the Health Department’s Division of Environmental Health, but Health spokeswoman Eunice Bedminster said on Wednesday that she could not provide any information on the spill.
 
Javadi said that the Health Department issued KFC a $150 fine.
 
The V.I. Waste Management Authority inspected the spill, according to May Adams Cornwall, the authority’s executive director, but decided not to issue a citation.
 
Cornwall said that, although Virgin Islands code prohibits improper waste storage, Waste Management Authority citations have not been holding up in court. She said the authority is trying to find out why local judges are not enforcing the citations.

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