Best defense is good offence? 574 sick, Foster Farms lawsuit blames exterminator for cockroaches

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Douglas Powell

Foster Farms is suing Orkin LLC, charging the pest control company was to blame for cockroaches that resulted in a three-day shutdown of its Livingston poultry facility in January.

The lawsuit, filed late last month in Merced Superior Court, claims Orkin should pay damages for failing to fulfill a contract to control cockroaches at the processing plant. The U.S. Department of Agriculture suspended operations at the Foster Farms plant because roaches were found on four occasions.

Orkin and a subsidiary, Orkin Services of California, are named as defendants in the lawsuit. Orkin filed a motion Wednesday seeking to move the case to the federal court in Fresno.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reportedly has tied 574 cases of salmonella illness to raw chicken from the Foster Farms plant in Livingston and two smaller plants in Fresno. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service notified Foster Farms last fall that the presence of cockroaches was a sign of unsanitary conditions at the plant.

Customers complain of roaches at Great Wall Chinese in Florida

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Douglas Powell

Great Wall Chinese is located in St. Petersburg along 62nd Avenue North and Martin Luther King Street in the Rutland Plaza shopping center. The take-out restaurant is popular among customers.

“It’s good, quick service,” said one previous customer we found in the restaurant’s parking lot. “The people were really friendly and the food was pretty good.”

But not everyone leaves Great Wall Chinese Take-Out satisfied with their service.

“She was eating her rice, and there was a little roach in it,” said Doriona Watson whose cousin, Twanisha Wright, filed a consumer complaint with the state, prompting a surprise visit by a health inspector.

The Florida Division of Hotels and Restaurants ordered an emergency closure April 28 after finding 28 violations. Among the issues were chicken stored in the freezer, unwrapped and with freezer burn; no soap at the employee hand washing sink; and roach activity, with 20 live roaches found under the three-compartment sink.

A guy ate a cockroach sandwich, so he’s waging Twitter war against a Canadian Subway

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Douglas Powell

After allegedly finding a cockroach in his sandwich at a Subway franchise in Sudbury, Ontario, Patrick Balfour took to Twitter to voice his complaints against the sandwich giant. He’s sparing no expense in the process: He even bought two anti-Subway promoted tweets for $90. His story is a testament to the power of social media to affect sweeping change—or the power of a near-obsessive-compulsive desire to shame a sandwich chain, either one.

Balfour’s Subway saga began 11 months ago, when he contacted @SubwayOntario via Twitter to complain about finding the critter in his sandwich (a turkey footlong on Italian herb and cheese bread).

He didn’t have a photo of the sandwich. “I was [disgusted] and got rid of the sub as soon as possible,” he said in an email. “I never thought it would drag on this long or that I’d ever need a photo of a dead cockroach.” But after sending a few tweets to @SubwayOntario, the company eventually responded, asking for Balfour’s contact info. When they failed to follow up with him after 10 days, he reached out again and they responded with the same message.

For a while, Balfour forgot about the cockroach incident, until @SubwayCanada launched a promotional initiative on Twitter. He decided to use their new advertising campaign as an opportunity to contact them again:

SUBWAY CANADA: More than great sandwiches, follow SUBWAY®Canada today!

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@SUBWAYCanada I found a cockroach in my sub. I spoke with someone from ‪@SubwayOntario & they said someone would be in touch. Never happened

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@mike_check_2012 ‪@SUBWAYCanada I wasn’t paying attention and it was dead. I thought it was a black olive at first until I saw the legs

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@SUBWAYCanada ‪@SubwayOntario no response??? Awesome!

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@SUBWAYCanada ‪@SubwayOntario a Why are you ignoring my tweets? You’d think that if I found a cockroach in my sub you might want to reach out

Like before, he received a perfunctory response:

SUBWAY CANADA: ‪@patrickbalfour ‪@SubwayOntario We’re sorry to hear this! Plz reach out to our Customer Care team at 1-800-888-4848 or http://bit.ly/1iA8MQV

“I called [the line], even though I thought that was a horrible response,” he told me. “What I got was a 24 hour voice mail. Now I was mad!”

Enraged by the subpar customer service, Balfour promoted the following tweet:

PATRICK BALFOUR: I found a dead cockroach in my sub which I bought in Ontario. This tweet is being promoted! Do you care now ‪@SubwayCanada? ‪#Subway

PATRICK BALFOUR: ‪@draxapup ‪@SUBWAYCanada if they have twitter available to engage with their customers they should solve their problems. Not very smart!

UK celeb haunt curry house found crawling with cockroaches

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Douglas Powell

An award-winning UK curry house popular with stars like Take That and Cliff Richard (are they stars? – dp) was closed down after health inspectors discovered it was crawling with cockroaches.

The Maharaja in Birmingham was named the UK’s Best Indian Restaurant in the 1996 Egon Ronay Awards.

But its celeb clientele were forced to get their korma fix elsewhere after the eaterie was closed down by environmental health officers.

An inspection of the city centre restaurant found it was overrun with cockroaches.

Investigators even found the bugs hiding in a sieve and their feces in an open yoghurt pot.
The Maharaja was closed down for several weeks and owner Nachhattar Batt, 69, ordered to appear before Birmingham Magistrates’ Court.

Prosecutor Tharan Biring told the court inspectors were stunned by what they found – revealing Batt had been warned in the past that he had an insect infestation.

Batt admitted two counts of breaking hygiene regulations and was fined £2,000.

Awash in cockroaches Calif restaurant calls health department on itself

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Douglas Powell

I’m a fan of transparency for all things food, so when a Marin, California restaurant called the heath department to report a massive cockroach infestation – at its own restaurant, I thought, yeah.

Inside Scoop SF cites CBS which reports that Mill Valley’s Cafe del Soul — which describes itself as “a natural and organic cafe” — discovered “horrible” cockroach nests in between the walls of the restaurant and a neighboring business that happened to be remodeling.

The story gets weirder. Instead of closing (yes, they’re still open during said massive infestation) or keeping the problem hush-hush, they’re acting with full disclosure. In fact, they’re almost advertising it. To make matters stranger, even though Cafe del Soul called the health department on themselves, they are still allowed to stay open; per CBS, inspectors haven’t even inspected the restaurant yet.

Here’s the note that the owners of Cafe del Soul posted online and at the store:

To our Community,I feel I need to inform you of a situation that is out of our hands. Despite our best efforts to do and continue to do everything we can to keep our café and the surrounding areas as clean as possible, we feel we are fighting a losing battle because from what we have seen and experienced (been told by outside contractors) the building we are located in is infested with German cockroaches.

We are working with outside contractors and the building owner to eradicate the problem and will continue to do so, but because of the size of the problem a simple solution is not easy to find.

Thank you for your understanding and please talk to us about any questions and concerns that you have. Our hope is this information supports you in seeing what and how we do things to the best of our ability and trying to be as true and honest as we can.

All Staff & Supporters of Café del Soul.

Brisbane restaurant China House Seafood fined $25,000 for food safety breaches like cockroaches on plates

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Douglas Powell

A Brisbane restaurant has been fined $25,000 for food safety breaches after cockroaches were found on plates and in food handling areas.

The Courier-Mail reports that China House Seafood Restaurant Pty Ltd in Fortitude Valley pleaded guilty in the Brisbane Magistrates Court yesterday to 16 charges relating to deteriorating fittings, door seals and shelving, cleanliness issues, a chipped plate, and the presence of cockroaches.

Two directors, Dave On Cheung Chan and Youhe Wu, were also each fined $5000 after they pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the corporation complied with the Food Act.

Prosecutor Simon Hamlyn-Harris said council inspectors went to the restaurant in March last year where they found several issues, including a live cockroach on a stack of clean plates and in a food handing area.

He said the restaurant had been convicted of similar offences in 2009.

Hundreds of dead roaches in Florida restaurant

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Several hundred dead roaches in cabinets at the Mi Fiesta Mexicana restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida, seemed like a good reason to close the place.

Jacksonville.com reports that on Wednesday, a safety and sanitation inspector with the state’s Division of Hotels and Restaurants issued the emergency closure order for after finding “several hundred” dead roaches inside cabinets and other equipment throughout the restaurant at 1177 Park Ave.

In April, an inspector issued an emergency closure order for the same restaurant after finding more than 160 dead and live roaches throughout the establishment.

Last week’s inspection was the result of a complaint received by the state agency. Mi Fiesta Mexicana reopened Thursday morning after a follow-up inspection yielded zero violations. Neither inspection, however, was a full inspection of the restaurant, according to the restaurant’s inspection history, a public record.

Instead, both were partial inspections, with the inspector focusing on the problems named in the complaint.

Yummy House closed for yummy cockroaches in Vegas

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Douglas Powell

The aptly named Yummy House took on a new meaning after the Las Vegas eatery was closed when health types found at least one employee not washing hands properly; blockage in hand sink; hand sink was leaking; pink, slimy growth found on inside of ice machine; a white, fuzzy, mold-like growth on produce, food stored at the wrong temperature and no working thermometer in the refrigerator.

Containers of food were also not labeled properly and some were stored on the floor. Containers were double stacked and missing lids. Also, equipment including metal pans were severely dented and the staff was reusing single-use plastic cups.

The Health District told KTNV that the owners have decided to close indefinitely and are not sure if they will reopen.

52 live roaches force temporary closure of Florida Burger King

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Douglas Powell

After finding more than 30 live roaches in a beverage machine, a state inspector issued a temporary emergency closure order for a Jacksonville Burger King last week.

Gary Mills of the Florida Times quotes from the inspector’s report:

• 52 live roaches found at “several areas throughout establishment,” including 8 on a glue trap in a storage area, 2 underneath the hot bun holding unit at the sandwich make station, 9 behind the ice cream machine and 33 inside the ICEE beverage machine.

During the Friday, Dec. 9 re-inspection before the restaurant’s re-opening, no violations were noted in the inspector’s report.

‘Famous Food’ restaurant re-opening after closure for cockroaches

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Douglas Powell

All fame is fleeting. And attention can sometimes be unwanted.

TMZ.com reports that Lemon Basket — the restaurant that was at the center of the VH1 show "Famous Food" — is re-opening tonight after being closed for a few days thanks to a little problem … with cockroaches.

According to our sources, the restaurant — located on Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood — was shut down for a couple of days after being cited for health violations involving "cockroach infestation."

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