A West Palm Beach fast food restaurant is planning to re-open Saturday after voluntarily closing for a day following the release of a Facebook video showing rats running through the location.
The McDonald’s franchise, located off 45th Street and Australian Avenue, closed Friday once the video went viral days before. The owner, Ricky Wade, told NBC affiliate WPTV that the video was over a month old and that the rats come over due to construction at a nearby site.
"Ever since we had construction on the adjacent property…we have had rodents around the restaurant in the parking lot and due to the fact that we've seen this we've had our pest control companies on this on a daily basis,” said Wade.
Wade believes the video was released by a former employee who was upset because she got fired. The employee, when contacted by the station, says it was shot on February 1st.
Both the state’s Health Department and a pest control company visited the location on Friday as a result of the video’s release. A previous report said that close to 180 rat droppings were found both inside and outside of the location.
