A popular Leesburg bar and grill with a checkered past was closed recently after a health inspector found rodent droppings inside the eatery.
The inspector visited the Copperhead Bar & Grill, located at 1850 U.S. Hwy. 441, on Jan. 26 and reported finding four rodent droppings in the front bar area and six in the kitchen on shelving under a prep table. Up until recently, the facility was called the Copperhead Lodge Saloon.
The inspector also reported finding dead rodents under a sink in the bar, on the floor in the kitchen by an entry door, on the floor in a side office and on the floor across from a three-compartment sink, according to a report on file with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
The health inspector paid a second visit to the bar and grill on Wednesday, Jan. 29 and reported finding no violations. The eatery was then allowed to reopen at 2:48 p.m., the report says.
The Copperhead Lodge Saloon was in the news last month when 33-year-old Timothy Joseph Decker was charged with a woman’s death after witnesses saw him dragging her with his pickup truck in the parking lot of the facility. Decker was arrested on a warrant charging him with DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide in the June 15 death of 27-year-old Stevie Danielle Carmichael of Eustis.
They had been at the Copperhead Lodge Saloon in Leesburg on June 14 in Leesburg when witnesses saw them arguing, according to a Lake County arrest warrant. Decker got into a truck and would not allow Carmichael in the front passenger door. While she was holding onto the vehicle, Decker accelerated and began spinning the tires in an effort to make Carmichael let go. He began to drive across the parking lot, pulling Carmichael along with the truck. She tripped and was run over by the vehicle’s right rear wheel. Witnesses said he initially drove away, but quickly returned to the parking lot. Bystanders called 911. Some of the witnesses said the mishap did not seem intentional, but they also said that it appeared Decker had too much to drink.
A Fruitland Park man also was arrested in December after a woman working at the saloon called 911 after a man she had escorted from the bar pointed a black semiautomatic pistol at her. The man, later identified as 20-year-old Noah Carragher of 904 Hickory Ave., and two other men had been drinking at the bar but began to get “aggressive” with other customers, according to an arrest report from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. After being kicked out of the bar, the men fled in a gold 2009 Toyota.
However, Carragher later called law enforcement to report the vehicle, which is owned by his mother, had been stolen. Carragher said his companions took off, he hid the gun in a ditch and walked home. He said he hid the gun because he does not have a concealed weapons permit.
Carragher was taken into custody at his home and driven back to the bar, where the woman identified him. He showed deputies the ditch where he hid the gun and it was recovered as evidence.
In July 2018, 59-year-old Robert Michael West was jailed after a police officer found him sitting the bed of his black pickup truck after a crash in front of Gator Harley-Davidson on U.S. Hwy. 441. West, who said that he had consumed “approximately 15 beers,” told the officer that he was heading west on U.S. Hwy. 441 when a green Dodge Caravan swerved into his lane, causing the vehicles to collide. The officer also noted in his report that an odor of alcohol coming from West’s mouth got stronger as they talked and that West told him he was coming from the Copperhead Lodge Saloon, about 300 feet from the accident scene.
