Shell Game

Last October, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW)
enforcement officer Erik Olson walked into a Shoreline sushi restaurant
on a mission. According to a search warrant affidavit filed in King
County Superior Court, Olson had received a tip from a former employee
of Bada Sushi that the restaurant was serving unlicensed, stolen clams,
putting customers at risk of potentially lethal poisoning.

Olson, the affidavit says, contacted Bada’s manager and searched the
building, where he found 150 pounds of clams stuffed in grocery bags in
a walk-in freezer. Before the search, the affidavit says, the manager
had told Olson that the restaurant did not serve clams. The affidavit
says Olson tossed the clams in a nearby Dumpster.

Bada Sushi has received several favorable write-ups from the
Seattle Times, which praised the restaurant’s multicourse “live
sushi” meals—which cost anywhere between $90 and
$200—recommending Bada Sushi as a destination for “sushi
extremists and those who love them.”

Bada Sushi manager Han Kim says the clams were left over from a
previous owner who sold the business in April. The Stranger was
unable to determine by press time whether the restaurant was sold last
year.

According to the affidavit, the former employee told Olson he had
discovered between 300 and 400 pounds of clams in the restaurant’s
freezer; the clams did not include the sale information and tags that
the state requires for all commercially sold shellfish. The employee
confronted the restaurant’s owner, Won Soon Lee. In response, the
affidavit says, Lee told the employee “they would not get caught…
since the health inspectors do not look in the freezers.”

The affidavit says the restaurant serves the clams as a
complimentary side dish with all orders at the restaurant. “Once the
clams begin to smell from decay, they are put into bags and placed in
the freezers,” the affidavit says. “The clams are served in soup at the
restaurant until the supply is depleted. After which, [Lee] digs more
clams.”

The affidavit also notes that the King County Health Department
almost shut the restaurant down in October, after an inspection turned
up a number of violations, such as re-serving untouched food to new
customers, serving live fish with parasites, and repeated problems with
hair in food. The violations earned them 85 violation points, according
to health-department records; a score of 90 requires immediate
closure.

According to Mike Cenci, deputy chief of operations for WDFW’s
enforcement division, poaching is on the rise in Washington. “You can
go out [to a beach] for a few hours and make a few hundred bucks just
by digging up clams,” Cenci says.

Cenci says WDFW didn’t file charges because the investigation, which
involved surveilling employees’ cars by GPS tracker, didn’t “pan out.”
While Cenci would not go into detail, he does believe WDFW “had
probable cause for the [warrant].

“Just because we don’t make a case doesn’t mean people aren’t
engaged in illegal activity.”