In the gauzy light of morning, a spindly figure strides across a parking lot in Canton toward a popular seafood restaurant on the harbor. City restaurant inspectors closed the establishment a day earlier after discovering rat droppings in the kitchen. Now Peter Beilenson has come to have a look for himself.
Inside the restaurant, where an exterminator is already on the prowl, Beilenson gets a tour from an eager-to-ingratiate manager. It's been a bad spell rodent-wise, the beefy, sandy-haired man laments. That construction on the harbor has stirred up damn near all of rathood. Now they're acting like every restaurant and grocery in the area is the Promised Land. Not long ago, he found a couple of them cavorting in a potted plant in the dining room. Luckily, the restaurant had already closed for the night.
Beilenson listens sympathetically, and asks how the city can help. Then he scribbles down his office telephone number. "Call me if you need anything," he says before heading for the door, just as two of his inspectors arrive.
There is no real demand here for the presence of Baltimore's health commissioner. After all, this is a city in perpetual health crisis, what with drugs, AIDS and teen-age pregnancy, not to mention the occasional appearance of the West Nile virus or sewage spill into the Jones Falls. Restaurant closings are not out-of-the-ordinary. A cafe is cited, corrections are quickly made, it reopens. Not a big deal. Still, Beilenson often makes a point of dropping by after a shutdown order. "I like to go to these things so I have first-hand knowledge," he says.
That doesn't seem to strike him as convincing enough, so he tries again. "It's important to back your inspectors," he says. Then one more time: "It's important because of the economic impact."
Finally, as though giving up on a satisfying grown-up answer, he arrives at what sounds closest to the truth. "I don't know why I go. I like to. It gets you out of the office."
Beilenson is not juvenile; he's restless. He has an itch for seeing things for himself, which is why he pretended to be a drug addict a while back to find out how clinics in the city treated those who came to their doors. Even after eight years on the job -- making him one of the most senior members of the mayor's Cabinet -- Beilenson is only 40 years old and without noticeable traces of burnout or cynicism. Government bureaucracy is renowned for crushing initiative and verve, but Beilenson has managed to remain one of the more energetic and innovative public officials in Maryland -- and one of the most candid.
