The city’s inspectional services department was busy last week, cracking down on two local businesses for violations but opting to work with them to raise standards rather than take a strictly punitive approach.

On Saturday, a patron outside America’s Food Basket on Cummins Highway in Mattapan looked on as two men unloaded a goat carcass from a pickup truck into a grocery cart and wheeled it into the store. The customer captured the scene on video and posted it to YouTube on Saturday.

According to William Christopher, commissioner of the city’s Inspectional Services Department, officials were alerted to the customer’s concerns and the video at about 8:15 a.m. From the video alone, said Christopher, there were problems with the meat. “The concern for me was, it was wrapped in tarps, with no ice. We didn’t know if it was for private consumption, where they were just using the saws to cut it up, or what the story was.”

Inspectors were at the site in an hour and cited the store for several violations. It did not store cut vegetables at a low enough temperature; it had plumbing and drainage problems, and visibly dirty floors near the produce.

According to the ISD, store manager Austin Morda “stated that whole cuts of meat brought in by the public are fabricated at the establishment as a service.”

Butchering services for private individuals has been performed occasionally at the site for years, but the practice is against city code. “We have to know the origin of all food,” Christopher said.

At a hearing on Tuesday, Morda and a regional said they were embarrassed but unaware that the butchering was illegal. But “ignorance is no excuse,” Christopher said, as the managers are responsible for upholding health code at all Boston facilities.

The grocer is being allowed to operate both the Cummins Highway store and another in Hyde Park normally while the city conducts further inspections. However, the handling of outside meat and poultry has been discontinued and customers are being alerted via signs on the stores. Invoices stating the origin of meats must be provided to the city as well.

“Enforcement through compliance” is the goal, rather than shuttering businesses entirely, Christopher said. “The more we educate, the more results we get from owners.”

That theory was also applied to a three-story building on the corner of Talbot and Southern avenues in Codman Square that houses a barbershop/beauty parlor and variety store on the lower floor.

Christopher said the department has received a number of calls from the neighborhood reporting that the variety store, which primarily sells beer and wine, was dangerously overcrowded. An inspection last Thursday revealed that the barbershop area was also being converted into a restaurant without the proper permits, Christopher said.

“They started [construction] now, and they did manage to get an electrical and plumbing permit for the restaurant, but they don’t have an occupancy permit,” he said on Monday. “They filed for it, and one of our inspectors was out there today, and probably is going to write some more violations because most of the work is done [without the appropriate permitting].”

The variety store at 322 Talbot Ave. is filled with wall-to wall coolers of alcohol, Christopher said. Beer is stacked haphazardly in the store’s basement, extended out under the restaurant area, where unpermitted structural and electrical work had been done. The property owner said he had not conducted the work, which “they simply didn’t have the authority to do,” Christopher said.

Inspectional services reached an agreement with the owner for bringing the building up to code. The first floor will be structurally reviewed because of the weight of the coolers, and it will also be fire-rated. The unpermitted electrical work will have to be assessed, and a proper exit through the stacked beer in the basement will also be established.

“He thought it would be a good idea to voluntarily do what we asked him to do,” Christopher said.”