A Domino's in Oildale was closed by the Environmental Health Division of Kern County Public Health Friday for a rat infestation and one employee said it could have been prevented.
Linda Cordonier has been a Domino's delivery driver since 2005 and she said store management knew about the rats but still served food.
Cordonier looked forward to working for her employer who also owns four other Domino's in Bakersfield,"I really loved my job and it was a fun job."
Until she was asked to do something outside of her job description.
"I came in one morning and cleaned all the rat stuff up," Cordonier said.
According to Cordonier she alerted management about the problem but an exterminator still wasn't called, "The droppings have been there for quite some time and I've just been trying to catch them."
She also said this isn't the first time.
"A year before it burned down we had a really bad rat infestation,"Cordonier said.
23abc first received pictures of one of the rats from a viewer and we notified Kern County Public Health immediately.
"We would have not been able to take action today if it weren't for the complaint that we received," Kern County Public Health Public Relations Officer Michelle Corson said.
The same viewer who sent us the picture of one of the rats also sent us numerous video she said was shot on Monday during the rainstorm. Cordonier said it was a challenging Monday because of a hole in the ceiling, "It started pouring down rain and it started coming through the roof and we just stood there all day in the rain and prepping food,I prepped 20 cases of cheese that day."
Today, Public Health inspectors also said they found a hole in the roof over a food prep area inside the Domino's.
Corson and her inspectors placed an operation suspension notice on the Domino's door just before noon today.
Public Health said it relies on the community to keep an eye out for problems like this,"Directly complain to us on our free safe diner application. It’s free on your phone you can take pictures, link them up, send them on the free app on your phone to our Environmental Health team and we go out and inspect complaints," Corson said.
Corson said the doors to the Domino's will remain closed until they finish their investigation and conduct a hearing with management.
