Lawrence Community Shelter, 3655 E. 25th St.

The Lawrence Community Shelter used cats in a food storage area to help control its rodent problem — one of a number of violations that led to the closure of the shelter’s kitchen Thursday evening.

An inspector found hundreds of fresh rodent droppings on the floor, pots, pans, shelving and containers, boxes and bags of food in the kitchen and warehouse, according to a Kansas Department of Agriculture report. The rodent waste was deemed an “imminent health hazard,” an inspection report states. Two cats were used in the warehouse, where food is stored, “to help with pest control.”

Approximately 60 pounds of food had to be thrown out because rodent droppings were on or around it.

In the case of imminent health hazards, an establishment is supposed to discontinue operations immediately, according to the Thursday inspection report. There were six violations in total, putting the shelter in noncompliance of state law.

Trey Meyer, the shelter’s director, closed the kitchen and asked inspectors to return Friday morning. According to an inspection report from Friday, the shelter had corrected all of the violations. However, it remains in noncompliance because pest issues are not immediately correctable, said Heather Lansdowne, communications director for KDA.

Meyer closed the kitchen and ordered 36 pizzas for the shelter’s residents Thursday night. The kitchen was reopened at 8:30 a.m. Friday after a follow-up inspection.

Lansdowne said the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department had received a complaint about the shelter’s kitchen. The complaint was forwarded to KDA on Wednesday.

An inspector will follow up again on March 28.

The shelter serves approximately 400 meals every day, said John Tacha Jr., president of the shelter’s board of directors.

Tacha said shelter employees, volunteers and residents share the cleaning responsibilities. Going forward, there will be “more responsibility asked and expected from the guests,” he said.

“I don’t want to say I’m disappointed in anyone because I’m honestly not,” Tacha said. “I wish things were perfect all the time, but that’s not the world we live in. When you weigh this against the amount of work going on out there, this doesn’t make me lose pride.”

Employees had worked to clean the kitchen until 3 a.m. Friday, going unpaid for the time, Tacha said. He commended staff for “rectifying it as quickly as we did.”

Some of the violations were dealt with on the spot Thursday, such as a moldy box of bread in the warehouse and containers of food that weren’t dated. Food was found on the floor of a walk-in cooler.

“It was the kind of things you find in a restaurant: food storage issues, pest issues,” Meyer said. “She (the inspector) made a list of things she wanted addressed, and we got that done.”

In addition to 100 or so fresh rodent droppings in the kitchen, 200 to 250 old rodent droppings were found on the kitchen floor and another 100 to 150 were on the floor of the warehouse.

A pest control service was called Thursday while the inspector was present.

During the Friday inspection, shelter staff was told to create a barrier between the cats and a food storage area.

“We want to use this as an opportunity to streamline kitchen operations and follow the best practices,” Meyer said.

The inspection came after multiple requests from the city to receive a strategic plan — three months after it was due — for how the shelter would remain financially viable in 2016.

Facing serious financial problems, the shelter asked for emergency funding last summer from the city and Douglas County to keep the doors open. The city and Douglas County each provided an additional $50,000 for a total of $100,000.

About the inspection results, Interim City Manager Diane Stoddard said, “the news is certainly concerning.” She noted that the city does not have regulatory oversight of the kitchen, but it does provide funding to the nonprofit.

“It is obviously highly inappropriate,” said Commissioner Lisa Larsen, when she heard of the inspection results. “We will need to address this directly with (the shelter).”

As for the strategic plan, Meyer submitted that to the city only this week. For the city’s payment, the community shelter board agreed to allow the city to audit its finances and to provide a strategic plan by Dec. 31, 2015.

It’s unclear what the plan says.

Assistant City Manager Casey Toomay, who was in charge of working with the shelter to get the plan, was not working Friday.

Stoddard said the shelter “did provide us something, a document… in response to our request.”

Larsen said she had gotten a copy but had not read it yet.

“We do have it in our hands, but I didn’t get a chance to look at that, but we will on Monday,” Larsen said.

— Reporter Karen Dillon contributed to this report.