It may be a really good justification for smuggling your own snacks into the movie theater.

Fayette County’s only first-run movie theater complex flunked two recent health department food safety inspections, with reports reading like the script from a food service horror movie.

“Additional cleaning needed of EVERY SURFACE inside and out of EVERYTHING!” the official health department inspection report stated [emphasis in the original]. “Everything sticky, dirty, covered in grime and rodent feces. Cleaning includes cash registers, cupboards, shelves in coolers, freezer and bottoms of drawers and coolers and freezers. All hand-washing sinks, paper dispensers, and soap dispensers need cleaning.”

A March 23 follow-up food service inspection by Fayette County Health Department inspectors at Cinemark Tinseltown 17 theater in Fayette Pavilion and a second follow-up March 29 will result in a court appearance for the movie complex.

Theater and company officials did not respond to a reporter’s request for comments on the inspections.

Tinseltown scored 50 out of a possible score of 100 on the March 23 follow-up inspection and 54 on the follow-up to the follow-up March 29. The theater was issued a citation March 31 to appear in Fayetteville Municipal Court June 20 for food service violations.

The theater scored deficiencies in 16 of the 41 scoring categories during the March 23 inspection, compiling a total score of 50 in categories that included hazardous, critical and general compliance areas.

The deficiencies ran the gamut from employees who did not wash their hands after touching hair and money prior to preparing food to surfaces being found sticky, dirty and covered in grime and rodent feces to the order to clean the floor areas under all equipment and shelves to remove all rodent feces and urine. The theater scored 82 on the previous inspection.

“Rodent feces found throughout all food service areas,” Health Inspector Peggy Monkus said in the report. “Rodent problem will not go away until the theater is: 1) kept clean, 2) all means for entry are closed off, holes filled in proper weather stripping of all doors, 3) no areas for the rodents to hide and live and 4) no sources of water.”

The theater was cited for infractions in the eight of the 12 inspection areas, including Personnel, Food Protection, Temperature Control, Equipment and Utensils, Water, Plumbing, Physical Facilities and Other Operations.

Category I violations are considered hazardous to the public health and require an immediate correction while Health Department staff are present, with a permanent correction within 24 hours, according to Fayette County Health Department guidelines.

Category II violations are considered critical operational and maintenance violations which can increase the potential for causing food-borne illness. Those violations must be corrected within 72 hours.

Category III items are conducive to good management practices which maintain a healthy environment for the consumer. Those violations are expected to be corrected by the next routine inspection, guidelines said.

Each food service location is given a score of 1-100 in each of the three categories. The three scores are averaged to become the final score.

The theater’s Category I violations included no hand-washing after employees touched hair or money before preparing food, not maintaining the cooler temperature at 47 degrees or lower, the freezer not keeping buns frozen and bottles of cleaning material stored in front of the microwave oven.

Category II violations included failure of all employees to wear hair restraints or have hair pulled back, missing or partially closed lids to popcorn containers that prevent access by rodents, uncovered mustard, ketchup and hot peppers in the main snack station cooler and unprotected stacks of beverage cups left on shelves with rodent droppings.

Other Category II violations included the failure to remove rust from the inside door of ice makers and remove mold in ice machines and bins, failure to clean or replace dirty ice shovels, chemicals stored on the floor in main and satellite stations, shelves in the upstairs store room not six inches above the floor and no hot water at many of the hand washing sinks in all restrooms and some snack station sinks.

While not considered hazardous or critical, violations cited in the General Items Category were as striking. A sampling of those violations included the rodent feces and urine on floors accompanied by grime and dried-on food on some surfaces and “cleaning needed of every surface inside and out.”

On the March 29 follow-up inspection, the theater scored 54. Many of the same deficiencies were noted, including the need to remove mold from inside the left snack station ice maker, the presence of rodent feces and urine, keeping cups uncovered, no thermometers in coolers, no hot water in any customer restrooms, dirty vents and dumping food in hand-washing sinks.

Warnings were again issued, with two of those indicated in bold print. Those said, “1) additional cleaning needed of everything, to include the inside and outside of everything!!! and 2) rodent feces found throughout all food service areas.” [Emphasis in the original report.]

Cinemark Communications Vice President Terrell Faulk did not respond to a request for information on the violations. Cinemark is Tinseltown’s parent company. Fayetteville Tinseltown Manager Brian Ortega did not return the message left for him April 1.

Fayetteville Clerk of the Court Kim Donald confirmed Monday that Ortega is scheduled to appear in city court June 20 related to the March 23 and 29 violations. If he pleads guilty, the theater can pay the fine, she said, otherwise he can plead not guilty and receive a bench trial.

A blogger, Dana Kinser of Peachtree City, reported the health department report online at TheCitizen.com initially. The official report can be viewed online at http://www.admin.co.fayette.ga.us/health/environmental/fsinspections/TinseltownMovies17.pdf.