Rats the size of burritos feast on Chipotle’s trash in Brooklyn Heights

Chipotle blames construction site; BHA blames Chipotle

April 23, 2018 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

A worker at the 189 Montague St. construction site holds his arms out to indicate the size of a very large rat he saw while on the job. Eagle photo by Mary Frost

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Supersized rats have been feasting on the all-you-can-eat trash buffet in front of Chipotle in Brooklyn Heights, but locals are the ones who’ve had their fill.

The popular Montague Street eatery dumps its garbage out front around 6 p.m. every evening, giving rats hours of feeding time.

“On average, I see four or five rats going back and forth from the garbage to the building next door under construction,” said Brooklyn Heights resident William Taylor who has documented the ripped-open garbage bags and the vermin. “With a constant source of food, I wonder how big the rat community has grown!”

Chipotle blamed the rats on the construction of a new apartment tower where office building 189 Montague St. and residential building 146 Pierrepont St. once stood.

“It wasn’t like that before. When they started the construction, they came out,” said Margarette Pierre, a Chipotle manager. She added the restaurant tries its best to properly bag its waste because “the rats are not good for us, either.”

“I’ve seen rats bite through the bags — and they’re big,” she said. She described the rats as particularly aggressive to passers-by.

The Brooklyn Heights Association said Chipotle can’t just point its finger at the construction site.

“Rats are attracted to food, and Chipotle is contributing to the problem by putting its garbage in bags that rats can easily open,” said Peter Bray, the group’s executive director. “If there is no food available, the rats would not be foraging on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. It is incumbent upon Chipotle to put their garbage in rat-resistant containers.”

City inspectors found signs of rats at the construction site back in August 2015, but the project got a clean report just over a year later, the last inspection on record.

The company that is developing the apartment building did not respond to a request for comment.

But a worker on the site admitted that there is at least one rat — and he said it was enormous.

How big? When asked to describe the animal, he held out his hands to the width of a very large house cat…or a particularly well-stuffed burrito.