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The heart-wrenching saga of the Inhouse Nosh Café, the Reason to Love New York that was shuttered by the Department of Health this week, got immeasurably more poignant the other day when we were given a copy of owner Andrew Spitz’s letter to Mayor Bloomberg. Having written a few hopeless missives in our own day, we read on with growing admiration.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,
I am a small businessman for the past 45 years. I built up a good reputation and was respected by everyone who knew me. On April 18, 2007, it all came crashing down …

[The DOH Inspector] closed our place down for NO logical and reasonable offenses, like unsanitary conditions, but for a new requirement of a three-compartment sink, and numerous insignificant items some of which were totally ridiculous. I run and always ran an immaculately clean operation …

The atrocities I went through at the hand of Nazis 60 years ago, the feelings of helplessness revisited me. I suffer now again the severe pain – of injustice! I hope and pray you will not let this go on! God Bless You Mr. Mayor. Thank you for reading my ‘megillah.’

Sincerely,
Andrew Spitz

We don’t think Andy can win his quixotic fight against the powers that be, but that only makes us love him that much more. How many septuagenarians would pour their hearts out for the right to sell knishes and spinach salads to office workers? If Yum Brands, the parent of Taco Bell–KFC, had cared an iota as much about their Greenwich Village bestiary as Andy does about his lost paradise, we would all have been spared a lot of tsuris.

Earlier: The Health Department Rampage Hits Grub Street Close to Home