A Big Apple health inspector carrying out random COVID compliance checks was refused entry to a Staten Island bar — because she couldn’t show her own proof of vaccination.
Stunned bar manager Maggie Koronilian, 38, told The Post on Friday how she had to boot the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene employee from Big Nose Kate’s Saloon and Eatery on Tuesday.
“I don’t understand how you’re coming here enforcing something and not cooperating with the very thing that you’re trying to enforce,” she said of the Big Apple’s stringent Key to NYC rules for bars and restaurants.
Koronilian said inspector Benedicta Opara came to the South Shore bar Tuesday with her official identification on clear display.
“She said, ‘I’m here to do a COVID inspection,’ so I asked to see her vaccination card, as we do for anyone who comes here,” said Koronilian, whose boyfriend, Vincent Signorile, is Big Nose Kate’s owner.
“She just said, ‘No. That’s what I’m here checking for,’ and that she wasn’t there to stay and eat,” recalled the manager.
Koronilian said she told Opara that she had to be “checked just like everybody else” if she wanted to come in.
“I asked her a few times to show it to me before I told her, ‘Listen, we better go outside,’” said Koronilian.
Courtesy: Maggie Koronilian
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