Marblehead eatery serves up course of resistance to health inspection

MARBLEHEAD – Things are getting sticky for the restaurant known as Sticky Rice.The restaurant needs a health inspection before the owner can move to a new location – and Health Inspector Bobby Cody said Wednesday that her office has yet to be contacted for an inspection.The Hawkes Street location closed Oct. 22 but before owner Amorn Phongtong can reopen at Village Plaza he needs to take care of some kitchen violations Cody discovered at Hawkes Street Nov. 7.Cody said she found food in the freezer, open food containers, appliances that didn’t work, holes in the walls and an overall need for “a thorough cleaning.” She returned two weeks later and reported that the non-working appliances had been removed but nothing else was changed.Phongtong, who hopes to sell his old location with the liquor license, has been before selectmen twice in the past two months.The first time he appeared, the board told him that he would not receive a common victualler’s license for a new restaurant until the violations at the old one were corrected.Last week they told him once again that he needed to resolve the health violations and they voted to schedule a hearing to determine if the liquor license should be revoked.Phontong told the board he was “working on it” and had addressed everything except the holes in the walls, but the board noted that he declined to have the kitchen re-inspected Wednesday, the day of the meeting.Selectmen told him the only way to avoid the license revocation hearing was to correct the violations.A call to the health department Wednesday revealed that Phongtong has yet to ask Cody to inspect the restaurant a third time.