The title of the Reddit post stated: “It’s a miracle that the policeman didn’t grab the poufs right away! We must not be ‘suppressed’: let the intestinal wind escape for everyone!”
The fine said that in the incident in Bennoplatz, Vienna, the person violated a regulation by violating public decency or for an unduly disturbing noise. More specifically, according to the fine, “they violated public decency by loudly blowing a bowel in front of police officers.”
In October 2019, Missouri police revealed that they located a suspect after he farted loudly. The Clay County Missouri Sherriff’s Office said on social media: “If you’ve got a felony warrant for your arrest, the cops are looking for you and you pass gas so loud it gives up your hiding spot, you’re definitely having a [poop emoji] day.”
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. will, according to Edvard Pettersson of Bloomberg, pay a $25 million criminal fine to resolve allegations by federal prosecutors that its food sickened more than 1,100 people across the U.S. from 2015 to 2018.
It’s the largest fine ever imposed in a food-safety case, according to a statement by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.
The criminal charges pertain in part to norovirus outbreaks at Chipotle restaurants. The highly contagious virus can be transmitted by infected food workers handling ready-to-eat foods and their ingredients, according to the statement. It can cause severe symptoms, including diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal cramping.
“Chipotle failed to ensure that its employees both understood and complied with its food safety protocols, resulting in hundreds of customers across the country getting sick,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said in the statement announcing the deferred-prosecution agreement.
The Newport Beach, California-based company said that, as part of the agreement, it will its strengthen its food-safety polices and practices.
“This settlement represents an acknowledgment of how seriously Chipotle takes food safety every day and is an opportunity to definitively turn the page on past events and focus on serving our customers real food made with real ingredients that they can enjoy with confidence,” Brian Niccol, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, said in a statement.
Prosecutors alleged that four norovirus outbreaks were caused by employees showing up to work sick, in violation of company policy, and by food products being stored at the wrong temperatures.
A fifth outbreak — which sickened about 647 people in July 2018 who dined at a Chipotle in Ohio — was from Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium found in raw meat and poultry that is one of the most common types of foodborne illness in the U.S. People who get ill from it usually recover in 24 hours and it’s not contagious.
Managers at the company’s restaurants failed on a number of occasions to notify Chipotle’s safety group at its headquarters when an employee had been vomiting at work, according to prosecutors. Instead, the safety analysts would find out only after contacting the restaurant because it had received a complaint from a sick customer. As a result, there were days of delay before the restaurants were sanitized.
WTKR reports that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning to the maker of Purell hand sanitizer to stop making unproven claims that the product can help eliminate diseases like Ebola, MRSA and the flu.
According to CNN, the FDA’s director of compliance sent a “warning letter” to Gojo, Purell’s parent company, to stop making unproven claims for marketing purposes that could position the hand sanitizer as a pharmaceutical drug.
The letter from the FDA reportedly notes that Purell says on its website and on social media that the sanitizer “kills more than 99.99% of the most common germs that may cause illness in a healthcare setting, including MRSA & VRE.” Purell and Gojo also note that “Purell Advanced Gel, Foam, and Ultra-Nourishing Foam Hand Sanitizer products demonstrated effectiveness against a drug resistant clinical strain of Candida auris in lab testing.
Finally, the FDA chastized Purell for claiming on the Q&A section on its website that the product can be “effective against viruses such as the Ebola virus, norovirus and influenza.” The FDA says it is not aware of any hand sanitizers that have been tested against Ebola.
AP News reports an unlicensed food delivery service in the Sacramento area has been fined more than $100,000 after several customers were sickened.
The owner of Anna’s Kitchen “repeatedly delivered hundreds of meals that had not been kept properly hot or cold for extended periods of time, increasing the likelihood of foodborne illness,” the Yolo County district attorney’s office said in a statement Monday.
The business used the popular Chinese app WeChat to market its homemade Chinese food to Chinese foreign exchange students at the University of California, Davis, authorities said.
A health investigation began after several students reported becoming sick.
The business owner, Xin Jiang, agreed to settle a civil enforcement action by paying nearly $107,000 in costs and penalties. The agreement was approved by a judge last month.
Jiang admitted wrongdoing and is no longer operating Anna’s Kitchen but he could face another $90,000 in penalties if he reopens it or is found selling any type of food without a valid county permit, the DA’s office said.
Three Sydney noodle manufacturing businesses have been collectively fined more than $150,000 in relation to various food safety and hygiene failures under the Food Act 2003 and the Food Standards Code following a targeted project by the NSW Food Authority designed to address a high-risk food sector where compliance was less than satisfactory.
The “Fresh Noodle Manufacturers Project” was designed to improve standards in the fresh noodle industry after the Food Authority became aware of compliance issues within the sector.
Over a period of four months NSW Food Authority officers conducted 25 inspections where they considered the use of preservatives, process and hygiene control, product labelling and temperature control.
The resulting enforcement activity included three prosecutions where one company was fined $11,000 and its director fined $2,800, a second company was fined $27,000 and the most recent result saw a Sydney manufacturer plead guilty to 19 charges and fined $113,000.
Dr Lisa Szabo, NSW Food Authority CEO, said while the wider community may not recognise noodles as a high-risk food, the intrinsic properties of fresh noodles mean that if they’re not kept within careful temperature control they become a breeding ground for the growth of microorganisms that can cause food poisoning.
“The NSW Food Authority is committed to ensuring people buying and eating food in NSW can do so with confidence and certainty that what they’re eating is safe,” Dr Szabo said.
“We target our efforts of investigation and risk management to where they are most needed in order to best protect the public and also reduce regulatory burden on those industry sectors who have a proven record of doing the right thing.”
The NSW Government’s Food Safety Strategy 2015-2021 has a goal of reducing foodborne illness by 30% by 2021 and a compliance target of 95% for all food businesses with food safety requirements.
Katy Clifton of Get West London writes a Southall restaurant owner was fined more than £155,000 after council officersfound staff handling food with unwashed hands and cooked food next to a filthy mop bucket.
Chini Chor, in South Road, was taken to court by Ealing Council’s food safety team after the restaurant was found breaking food hygiene laws on two occasions.
The owner, Ravi Kumar Bakshi, pleaded guilty at Ealing Magistrates’ Court on Monday (October 16) and was ordered to pay more than £155,000 in fines and costs of £2,810.
During two inspections, staff were seen handling foods without washed hands and the access to the sink was obstructed by colanders stored on the floor.
Cooked foods were stored next to a mop bucket and foods were placed in dirty cardboard boxes.
Equipment for preparing foods, such as a cheese grater, had build-ups of dirt and were not washed properly, council officers found.
As of Thursday (October 19), the restaurant has a food hygiene rating of one.
Councillor Ranjit Dheer, cabinet member for community services and safety at Ealing Council , said the Southall restaurant showed “no improvement” between the visits.
Ed Walker of Blog Preston writes the reason why Prestonians couldn’t drink their water without boiling it for a month has finally been revealed.
United Utilities has been fined after a cryptosporidium outbreak at its Franklaw treatment plants to the north of Preston,
The Drinking Water Inspectorate found the problems came from the Franklaw works using a different reservoir to source water
Rainwater running off agricultural land was able to access an underground water tank at Barnacre.
A ‘planned change in operations’ allowed the entry of the contaminated water into the treatment process.
Traces of cryptosporidium were detected in the water at Franklaw triggering a shut off of supplies for 700,000 people across Lancashire.
Supplies for many were knocked out for a month during the summer of 2015 as engineers worked to fix the issue.
At Preston Crown Court the hearing fined United Utilities £300,000 and additional costs of £150,000 were also agreed. The firm had pleaded guilty to supplying water unfit for human consumption.
United Utilities was criticised for not acting fast enough to issue the boil water warning to households and businesses.
It has since paid out £20million in compensation to customers through reduced water bills.
The fine was branded ‘pathetic’ by Preston MP Mark Hendrick.
I prefer to shop at Coles, but there is a few things I get from Woolies, especially since it’s on the way to and from school. She has a preference for tiger bread (I know it’s just white bread with stripes, but it’s on her way to swimming which is a decent bike ride, followed by an hour of laps, so for an 8-year-old, I’m not concerned about the empty calories.
Emma Young of The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Woolworths at Madeley’s Kingsway City must cough up $100,000-plus after numerous public health offences.
The conviction will result in a fine of $95,000 and costs of $7000 to Woolworths, which the City of Wanneroo began inspecting in October 2015 after a member of the public complained about their Woolworths brand Crusty Tiger Loaf, which was found to be ‘unsuitable for sale.’
“The inspection found that Woolworths were not in compliance with a number of food standard codes,” planning and sustainability director Mark Dickson said.
Woolworths was found to have failed to ensure its food handlers were skilled in food safety and food hygiene. It also failed to store food to protect it from contamination, failed to keep the store and its equipment clean and failed to “process only safe and suitable food”.
Evidence of pests was also found.
Woolworths pleaded guilty to all charges.
“The City’s follow-up inspections found that the issues were rectified,” Mr Dickson said.
Kate McKenna of The Courier Mail reports a Brisbane City Council health inspector not-so-finger-licking good things at a KFC store in Chermside shopping centre’s food court in March 2015.
Fast food restaurant operator Collins Restaurants Management was slapped with a $45,000 fine in the Brisbane Magistrates Court earlier this month after pleading guilty to six breaches of food health laws.
According to court documents, an audit on March 4, 2015, uncovered live cockroaches in locations around the kitchen including on the surface under the preparation bench, and beneath the wall capping next to the crumbing station.
The council officer found a live cockroach found on the door handle of the freezer that stored the chips, as well as 30 to 40 live critters under the gravy and mash potato bain-marie.
Other violations included no warm running water at the only hand-wash basin in the premises and a build-up of food waste on the floor.
Council prosecutor Mark Thomas said there was substantial cockroach activity in a number of places, and council was seeking a $55,000 fine against CRM, which had no prior convictions.
Ralph Devlin, QC, for CRM, said the open nature of food courts posed unique issues for food retailers because pest control could drive insects from one spot to another.
He said the company had taken swift action and closed the store following the discovery, threw out stock, stripped and cleaned equipment, and enlisted pest control to “mist” the area.
Acting Magistrate Robert Walker handed down a $45,000 fine and decided not to record a conviction against the company.
Matt Rocheleau of the Boston Globe reports that Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh is asking the City Council for approval to fine restaurants $300 per day if they fail to post their food safety inspection letter grades in their storefronts.
Restaurants and food trucks would have a year to comply after the launch of the letter-grade system being developed for restaurants citywide, though the grades would be available on the city’s website.
The city’s Inspectional Services Department has been developing the program. Officials there have said restaurants would receive either an A, B, or C grade.
The program would resemble rating systems that New York, Los Angeles, and other cities have been using since as early as the late 1990s. Locally, Newton launched a similar program in the fall that requires numerical ratings to be displayed inside restaurants.
Boston officials have previously told the Globe that letter grades will be issued to all of the city’s roughly 3,000 food establishments, including restaurants, food trucks, cafeterias, and other food vendors.
When an establishment gets a low grade, inspectors will return within 30 days to reinspect, city officials have said. If the violations are corrected, the city would bump up the grade accordingly. If the issues remain, the grade would stand until the next routine inspection, officials have said.
Restaurants would be subject to the $300 fines if they fail to post their letter grades “immediately after receipt, unobstructed, at eye-level, facing outward on an exterior-facing wall or window within five feet of the main entrance in the interior of the restaurant,” according to Walsh’s proposal to the council, which was previously reported on by the Universal Hub website.
The council is due to take up the matter at a meeting in City Hall on Wednesday.
The new rating system would not cost the city any extra money, city officials have said, because it would calculate grades based on the existing system used to inspect restaurants.
The title of the Reddit post stated: “It’s a miracle that the policeman didn’t grab the poufs right away! We must not be ‘suppressed’: let the intestinal wind escape for everyone!”
