Originally Posted by
CACycling
It is a gouge, not a crack. It looks like it is on top of the stem. Hard to beleive you didn't see it which means it will be hard to convince the LBS it was there when you bought it. If they won't make it right, smooth it off and use a bit of black paint to mask it.
bad advise, that's a high stress area with little material surrounding it, which now has a stress riser.
I'd be surprised if that didn't crack from regular riding. when it does crack, it's unlikely to be anything catastrophic, but it's not worth risking a life over.
now, if it was one of those faulty campagnolo cranks that developed cracks at the spider, then smoothing it is an option due to the sheer mass the area has.