Vermin Licking Good

And I have no doubt that the person quoted here actually was sick after saying this:

Inspectors raced to the [KFC/Taco Bell] franchise at Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street after a Post lensman shot these photos of scores of scabby rodents brazenly parading across the floors and tables of the fast-food joint early yesterday morning. Rat droppings could be seen littering the floor.

What the inspectors found was a “vermin infestation” that one health official called “egregious.”

The city Heath Department immediately padlocked the restaurant.

Earl Heffintrayer, a 29-year-old student at New York University, was particularly horrified to hear the news.

“That’s so disgusting. I just ate there last night. I think I am going to be sick. I’ll never come back here again,” he said, looking a bit green.

Officials at ADF Operating Corp., of Fairfield, N.J., which owns the franchise, said the infestation had resulted from a construction project in the building’s basement.

“It seems that due to this construction, an open space was left in the foundation that allowed the rats inside,” said the company’s chief operating officer, Harry Harnett. “It is our goal to complete the construction as soon as possible and clean and sanitize the restaurant and only with the OK of the Health Department will we reopen.”

But then who exactly will eat there?

And that Health Department OK may be easier than you think:

A city health inspector gave a passing grade to the notoriously filthy, vermin-infested KFC/Taco Bell just one day before shuttering it — after news cameras recorded a rat rampage through the Greenwich Village restaurant.

“We’re looking to see if the inspector dropped the ball on this,” said Health Department spokesman Geoffrey Cowley. “I think it may not have been as rigorous an inspection as it should have been.”

After receiving three rodent-related complaints about the establishment to 311 in the past few weeks, the inspector visited Thursday and uncovered some violations, said Cowley — but allegedly not enough for a failing grade.

The next morning, after horrified onlookers observed dozens of rats brazenly scurrying around the floors, tables and trash bins, and word spread to the media, inspectors raced back to the scene.

This time, they found a whopping 92 points worth of health-code violations — far surpassing a failing grade of 28.