Everyone has a camera, licking fetish edition: Meat in Ohio, doorknob in California

A video has surfaced showing a worker at “La Plaza Tapatia” international market in Columbus licking meat that was meant for customers.

Customers are outraged after the video was posted to social media. Now, the incident has gotten the attention of Franklin County Public Health.

“We do take that very seriously,” said Garrett Guillozet supervisor of the food safety program.

Guillozet, told ABC6/FOX28 that the images are disturbing.

“I was definitely surprised,” said Guillozet.

A tipster sent the clip to ABC6/FOX28 after it was posted to Snapchat. ABC6/FOX28 discovered the incident is just the latest in a string of potential customer health dangers at the west Columbus market. For a time in 2018, the grocery was placed on the Enforcement Program due to violations.

One the store’s Facebook page, the workers involved posted an apology video. They claim the meat had been dropped on the floor and after recording the video they threw it away.

For their part, administrators at Franklin County Public Health told ABC6/FOX28 that the market owners had been working to clean up issues.

“To see this happen after that was kind of disheartening and frustrating,” said Guillozet.

The owner of the store released the following statement to ABC6/FOX28. The below statement may be attributed to Gustavo Salazar, owner, La Plaza Tapatia:

La Plaza Tapatia is committed to the highest standards for the safety and quality of the foods we sell. We are extremely disappointed in the behavior of two of our employees, who posted a video of inappropriate actions in our meat handling area.

The video only involved the single piece of meat shown in the video, and it was immediately discarded (below, not exactly as shown, because I couldn’t find the real one). None of the meat we have for sale was affected.

This is unacceptable behavior, and the two employees have been terminated from their positions. We also will retrain all our employees in our firm expectations for food safety. Further, the Franklin County Health Department inspected our store on January 30 and found our operations to be both well maintained and with good food handling practices.

The trust and confidence of our customers and the Hispanic community is of great importance to us, and we apologize for any concern this situation has caused.

In weirdly related news, a California man was caught on surveillance video licking a doorbell for quite a while in a California neighborhood.

The suspect, whom police identified as 33-year-old Roberto Arroyo, spent about three hours licking the doorbell and milling around the Salinas, California yard of Sylvia and Dave Dungan.

The incident happened around 5:00 am. The homeowners were not home at the time, but they told news station KION that their children were.

They were alerted to the incident when their surveillance system notified them of movement by the front door.

The man was also caught relieving himself in the front yard, and reportedly also approached a neighbor’s house.

“You kind of laugh about it afterwards because technically he didn’t do anything,” said Sylvia Dungan, who owns the house shown in the video, told KION.

Police are searching for the suspect and say that he could face two misdemeanor charges for petty theft and prowling.

Crypto cases in Columbus double to over 600

The number of cases of Cryptosporidium in central Ohio topped 600 this week, following the holiday weekend and the unofficial end of summer and swimming pool season. Cases of cryptosporidiosis in Franklin and Delaware counties had reached 511 as of 2 Sep 2016, according to Franklin County Public Health.

diaper-poolHealth officials had reached out to pool operators, physicians, schools and day-care centers about the outbreak. Many local pools have been “hyper-chlorinated” to flush out traces of the disease before the pools closed for the season.

Health officials say people who are sick should stay home from school or day care and avoid pools and water parks, where cryptosporidiosis and other diseases easily pass from person to person. An infected person can spread the disease long after diarrhea subsides and should avoid swimming for at least 2 weeks.

 

Crypto don’t care about borders

With cases of Cryptosporidium linked to public pools reaching 300 in Columbus, Ohio, and 100 in Phoenix, Arizona, reports have emerged that there are now 223 confirmed cases of Cryptosporidium across southwest UK.

diaper.poolAccording to Heather Pickstock of the Bath Chronicle, no source has been found as yet for the cases and it is not known if they are all linked.

Dr Toyin Ejidokun, consultant in Communicable Disease Control for PHE South West, said, “We have had confirmed reports of Cryptosporidium infection amongst a number of people who visited the Oasis swimming pool in Swindon earlier this summer. The swimming pool is one of a number of possible exposures that we are exploring. At this point, there is no confirmed source of exposure. We would like to reassure the public that we have only had reports of these cases, and if visitors to swimming pools have had similar symptoms, to contact their GP.”

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant

Joyce’s Kitchen sorta sounds like Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, the title of Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 anti-war song and the subsequent 1969 movie.

The Columbus Local News reports that Joyce’s place, in Columbus, Ohio, gets to stay open but will be inspected more frequently. Last time, inspectors found a leaky roof over food prep areas, dirty food contact surfaces and food not being kept at proper temperatures during inspections on Jan. 26, Feb. 12 and Feb. 19.
 

Red, yellow, green inspection disclosure for Columbus pools

Toronto’s DineSafe program of restaurant inspection disclosure adopted the red, yellow, green display signs, along with a website, back in 2001.

Some people don’t like the colors and say a restaurant should either be open or closed – red and green.

In a June 2002 report for the City of Toronto, I wrote,

There are a variety of ways to communication the results of a municipal foodservice or restaurant inspection program including numerical scores, letter grades, colour schemes and a listing of critical and non-critical violations. Summaries and/or detailed inspection reports can be posted on premises, Internet-based web sites or available upon request by fax or mail. There is general agreement that no single approach or communication vehicle is superior to others, that a variety of approaches and systems are used, and that on-going evaluation and research are required to determine overall effectiveness. However, the limitations in various approaches should not preclude continued efforts to enhance restaurant inspection and disclosure systems to meet the overall objectives of a reduction in foodborne illness and enhanced consumer confidence.

How consumers interpret posted inspection results and web sites, along with the most effective delivery mechanism, is yet to be determined. But health officials in Columbus, Ohio, are jumping right in.

Columbus Public Health started placing signs at pools this summer. Green means the pool passed, red means the pool is closed, and yellow or white mean the pool is working on its problems.

The majority of pool closures are because of water chemistry. Columbus Public Health has closed pools 72 times since June, most of them in apartment complexes and hotels. Depending on further tests, some remain closed for as little as a few hours. Others remain closed for weeks.

When they fail, the red sign goes up.