When you attend a ballpark or stadium, the last thing you usually think about is whether the food you are eating is safe or not. Most times it doesn't matter either, it usually tastes so damn good. ESPN's Outside the Lines report today acquired the inspection reports to 147 stadiums and arenas and showed which stadiums have the best and worst sanitation. You may read through the report to see whether your stadium passes your sniff test, but we like to highlight some of the worst. We start with a Florida venue, one of the worst states in this report:
- American Airlines Arena
- Miami Heat
- Vendors with critical violations: 93%
- Inspection report excerpt: Critical violations included several safety issues related to electrical wiring and such equipment as gas boilers.
While these issues may not be specifically food related, electrical wiring and issues with gas boilers really sound more exciting than undercooked food.
Follow the jump for a few more highlights including why you shouldn't eat the food in Denver.
While most places have few to none of their vendors with critical violations, the three stadiums in Denver all seem to have vendors with serious issues. 62% of vendors at Coors Field, 61% of vendors at Invesco Field, and 67% of vendors at Pepsi Center were cited with critical violations including this one at Pepsi Center:
At one bar, inspectors found phorid flies, sometimes called coffin flies, in a bottle of cognac.
While flies in your drink may not be life threatening, its still pretty disgusting.
Finally, two venues had 100% of their vendors that had critical violations, Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, and Verizon Center, home of the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards. Here were some of the issues that were found at the Verizon Center:
Mice droppings, a critical violation in Washington, were found at at least 10 vendors.
That does make you wonder whether the Cookies and Creme Dippin Dots are all ice cream.