Tag Archives: restaurant inspection

Fail: Restaurant inspection disclosure programs that remain voluntary

Posted on by
Reply

Toronto, Los Angeles and New York City, along with hundreds of jurisdictions have figured this out: public health should disclose public health ratings, at the door, when people make up their mind about entering an establishment to brisbane.stars.scoresspend their money.

But the UK and several Australian states go through this convulsed process where they have scores on doors, but restaurants only have to post them if they want to, and who knows about food in school or hospital cafeterias.

The Brits were never ones for public disclosure (see Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk, 1997, or Yes, Minister).

Australian newspapers are reporting that customers are demanding voluntary food hygiene ratings become mandatory across New South Wales restaurants.

Same in the UK.

As someone who has been involved in these public disclosure efforts, including NSW’s back in the day, and advocated mandatory public disclosure from the beginning, it’s painful to watch the contortions.

According to The Border Mail, “Some retail food businesses in NSW display their  rating in the window, but only if their council signs up to the program and only if the business is happy with its rating.

Councils and industry groups are calling on the NSW Food Authority initiative, Scores on Doors, which issues certificates with three, four and five-star ratings during routine health inspections, to be made mandatory to standardise food safety across NSW and give customers more consistent information about hygiene at food establishments.

Since the program was launched in 2010, only about one-third of local governments in NSW have adopted the system.

North Sydney Council is the latest to announce that from July 1, following annual food safety inspections, it will begin issuing certificates that eateries can then choose to display.

“If a restaurant is displaying the purple and green poster, it has met minimum hygiene and food safety standards during the last food inspection. If it’s not displaying one, they can ask why,” North Sydney mayor Jilly Gibson said.

Wok On Inn at The Rocks, which scored five stars, has been displaying the certificate since the end of last year, and waiter Sunny Dongdang said he thinks that all businesses should be required to do so.

The best places will always come forward.

25 sick with E. coli: Chicago restaurant closed

Posted on by
Reply

The Chicago Tribune reports a Bridgeport restaurant has been closed after an outbreak of E. coli affected at least 25 Chicago residents and sent at least five Carbon Live Fire Mexican Grillpeople to the hospital, public health officials said Friday.

Carbon Live Fire Mexican Grill at 300 W. 26th St. has been linked to the Shiga toxin-producing E. coli outbreak and the restaurant closed voluntarily, according to a news release from the Chicago Department of Public Health. The restaurant is fully cooperating with the investigation.

The owner could not be reached for comment.

Don’t reveal our dirty secrets, beg French chefs

Posted on by
1

As a postscript to our recent trip to France, friend of the barfblog.com Albert Amgar, who we had the extraordinary pleasure of meeting, forwarded a note from a French colleague who argued that “I think that too much information on albert(food safety) problems creates uselessly an alarming climate of insecurity.”

Fail.

I have a vague understanding of this class-based approach to disclosure.

In 1994, as a graduate student, I was invited to a pre-G7 summit in Naples, Italy. The idea was to bring in a scientist and a journalist from each of the G7 countries to discuss medical conditions and whether patients should be told.

I was the scientist and journalist from Canada.

There was a lot of posturing from the Italian hosts, a lot of drinking and eating, and very little work.

It was a lovely weekend.

The Americans, the Brits and me (the Canadians)  agreed on full disclosure.

The other countries, including France, said their patients couldn’t handle it.

Guess things haven’t changed much.

According to The Times Paris on July 20, 2016, government wants to tell diners the truth by publishing results of health and safety inspections on the agricultural ministry’s website – chefs are aghast.

They are even more appalled at a proposal to stick a label in the window of their restaurants that will say whether hygiene is ‘very satisfactory’ ‘satisfactory’ , to improve’ or ‘to be corrected urgently’. Given that only a few restaurants are likely to be deemed ‘very satisfactory’ , the profession fears for its reputation.

Restaurateurs are campaigning to prevent the plan from being implemented next month. Hubert Jan, chairman of the Union of Hotel Trades and Industries, said that his members were already losing money because of France’s poor economic performance and terrorism fears. ‘The profession, which was badly hit by a fall in custom after the terror attacks, does not need to be thrown to the lions and stigmatised.’

The scheme was drawn up amid increasing concern over restaurant hygiene. In summer 2013, health inspectors ordered the closure of 252 establishments. In Paris, 321 were shut last year. Among the concerns of inspectors were sushi leƞ in the sun, broken fridges and food past sell-by date. The agriculture ministry tried out its ‘transparency of food hygiene’ programme in the capital, testing 367 restaurants. 34% were deemed to have a good level of hygiene, 54% were ‘acceptable’ and 8% were told they had to improve. The figures alarmed restaurateurs, who say that the ratings could be posted on internet guides and remain there even after failings have been rectified. They also fear diners will shun establishments with a label on their doors, unless it says ‘very satisfactory’.

Fancy food ain’t safe food: Heston-in-Australia edition

Posted on by
1

Heston Blumenthal is like a rock star of the cooking world, and so is his food.

gretzkyNo, this is what a rock star looks like (right, exactly as shown).

But there’s one thing he wishes people would stop doing in his restaurants — taking pictures of their food.

“Chefs always have this problem now, it’s across the board and you can’t control people,” he told news.com.au while in Melbourne to film Heston Week which starts tonight on MasterChef. “

“I would prefer if they (diners) didn’t take any photos and just enjoyed themselves at the table and certainly not take them throughout the whole meal.

I’d prefer it if they didn’t barf, and wish rock-star Heston and his excess shared that concern.

Australia is like Canada in that they both have an anxiety-driven need to be recognized – even if they say they don’t.

And if Heston is coming to town, that must validate things.

(Note, this is different than Wayne Gretzky coming to Australia in that he actually seeks to promote the spread of ice hockey whereas Heston seeks to promote himself.)

The UK Health Protection Agency report into an outbreak of Norovirus that felled 529 diners at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant in early 2009, clearly identified poor reporting and employees working while sick as contributing factors to the outbreak.

Blumenthal decided to ignore this and take to the Interwebs with his own revisionist version of what went wrong earlier this year.

Television presenter Jim Rosenthal, who was sickened, called Blumenthal’s response, “pathetic.”

“He has basically attempted to re-write the HPA report and its conclusions in his favour. It is pathetic and a complete PR disaster. There isn’t even a hint of apology.

“At first I was extremely sympathetic to Heston Blumenthal, but the way this has been mishandled beggars belief. I could not believe what I was reading in this email – it was like we had been sent different reports. I am taking them to court and a lot of other people are too. A simple apology might have ended all this a long time ago.”

vomit.birdBut on with the fawning.

For many people, dinner at Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in London, which recently took up a six-month residency at Crown Casino in Melbourne, is high on their bucket list.

So much so that 15,000 Aussies forked out $525 per person (excluding wine) for the pleasure.

Heston Week, which sees Blumenthal open four MasterChef Australia pop-ups in four days, commences tonight on Ten.

I won’t be watching.

A large foodborne outbreak of norovirus in diners at a restaurant in England between January and February 2009

Epidemiology and Infection September 2012 140 : pp 1695-1701

J. Smith, N. McCarthy, L. Saldana, C. Ihekweazu, K. McPhedran, G. K. Adak, M. Iturriza-Gómara, G. Bickler and É. O’Moore

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8647625

An outbreak of gastroenteritis affected at least 240 persons who had eaten at a gourmet restaurant over a period of 7 weeks in 2009 in England. Epidemiological, microbiological, and environmental studies were conducted. The case-control study demonstrated increased risk of illness in those who ate from a special ‘tasting menu’ and in particular an oyster, passion fruit jelly and lavender dish (odds ratio 7·0, 95% confidence interval 1·1–45·2). Ten diners and six staff members had laboratory-confirmed norovirus infection. Diners were infected with multiple norovirus strains belonging to genogroups I and II, a pattern characteristic of molluscan shellfish-associated outbreaks. The ongoing risk from dining at the restaurant may have been due to persistent contamination of the oyster supply alone or in combination with further spread via infected food handlers or the restaurant environment. Delayed notification of the outbreak to public health authorities may have contributed to outbreak size and duration.

Why inspection results need to be on the door, not hidden in a database: Roaches in wrappers, ice cream machine at Sonic in Florida

Posted on by
Reply

I’d never heard of Sonic until I moved to Kansas.

I had a student who worked part-time at Sonic, and never wanted to eat there.

sonicTheir commercials are super-creepy, but I guess it appeals to college football fans.

Known for carhops delivering food (we called them A&Ws in Canada, I’m not sure what they were called on Happy Days) , Sonic Drive-Ins can be found across the country.

“We eat the hotdogs and get the drinks during happy hour,” said Bruce Bennett visiting Florida with his wife, Janet, from Pennsylvania.

The couple had no idea the Spring Hill Sonic location was shut down by health inspectors just last week with 21 violations including an expired license. The inspector also reported finding live roaches in the dish area, by the fryer, under the soft serve ice cream machine and even in a box of wrappers for customers’ food.

“I wish I knew that before I got here today,” said Bennett after finishing his meal.

“It’s unhealthy,” said Janet Bennett. “I’m flabbergasted. I mean, I just can’t find words. It’s disgusting! It’s absolutely disgusting.”

We showed the full inspection report to the Bennetts’ and other customers. Along with all the roaches, customers seemed concerned to hear the location was ordered to throw out their ice after the inspector found the ice chute filled with mold.

“We just got slushies,” said Manual Ortega who had just ordered with two friends. “I wanna go over there and tell them we want a refund now. That’s gross.”  

The state did clear this location to reopen a day after their emergency closure, so 10Investigates stopped in checking to see if conditions were really cleaned up.

“I can’t say anything right now,” said an employee who identified himself as the Assistant Manager. “The person who is in charge is not here today.”

The employee told us he wasn’t authorized to allow our camera inside the kitchen so we asked if he could call his supervisors to ask for permission.

“Most of them are enjoying their days off and I don’t like to bug anyone on their days off. That’s why they have me here running the place,” the assistant manager said.

From the duh files: Arizona paper says give diners more information on health inspections

Posted on by
Reply

Emery Cowan of the Arizona Daily Sun writes that if a restaurant has print out a calorie count for most meals on the menu, why not a letter grade for how safely it prepared its food?

toronto.red.yellow.green.grades.may.11That’s one of the reactions to our story earlier this month reviewing the Coconino County’s food inspection procedures and listing some of the more serious offenders. We found that although most eating establishments were being inspected twice a year and some even forced to close temporarily, diners were kept largely in the dark. A closed restaurant must post a notice but is not required to give a reason, and the public health department’s bimonthly report usually comes out well after any violations – large or small — have occurred.

Most restaurants never come close to being closed and their violations are relatively minor and fixed almost immediately. What benefit is it to diners to have outdated information about infractions that don’t rise to the level of a health threat?

We suppose that if a letter grade was the only information available to diners, it could be misleading. But in the age of the Internet, the Health Department can post a lot more information if diners are interested. They just have to know where to look.

But unfortunately, Coconino County’s website has no portal through which citizens can obtain information about the results of a restaurant’s inspection or even lodge a complaint. Even when a restaurant like China Star, which has been forced to close twice in the past five years, posts a notice of closure, there is no way for diners to find the 16 complaints it received since 2009 or the multiple critical violations it accumulated.

A brief tour of the Internet turns up dozens of cities with web sites containing interactive public databases of restaurant inspections and enforcement actions. Many have explanations of the scoring and ranking methods, the most commonly cited critical and noncritical violations and the risk associated with different types of violations.

We urge county health officials to put a restaurant inspection public database on the fast track.

Brisbane Chinese restaurant fined after customer finds piece of metal scourer in fried rice

Posted on by
Reply

A Brisbane Chinese restaurant that served fried rice containing a piece of a metal scourer that lodged in the throat of a female customer has been fined $23,000.

Bamboo Basket restaurant at Portside, in HamiltonBamboo Basket restaurant at Portside, in Hamilton, also was twice found to have live cockroaches by Brisbane City Council officers last year.

Maxine Dosen coughed up the piece of metal from the scourer and was rushed to a hospital emergency to check that she had not swallowed more.

Brisbane magistrate Judith Daley said while it was not known how the piece of metal got into the food, a chef was in the habit of using the scourer to clean a wok during cooking.

Ms Daley said there would have been a real risk that part of the scourer could fall off.

She said after the incident the chef continued to use the metal scourer, despite staff being told not to do so.

 “It all happened so quickly,’’ Ms Dosen told The Courier-Mail last year.

 “I put this fried rice in my mouth and suddenly felt something sharp, like a prawn shell, go down my throat.

 scrubber.chinese.food.jun.16“I tried to bring it back up my throat and pulled this long, curly thing out of my mouth.’’

Felix Ip, a director of family-owned business Lafeco, which owns Bamboo Basket, pleaded guilty to five Brisbane City Council charges.

Apart from a charge of selling unsafe food, there also were charges relating to grime, failing to take precautions to prevent pests and having live cockroaches in the restaurant.

 

Everyone has a camera: Bakersfield, Calif. restaurant edition

Posted on by
Reply

Acting on a customer complaint, Kern County health inspectors found an infestation of cockroaches at Rocky’s Pizza and shut down the east Bakersfield restaurant Tuesday, according to a spokeswoman for the county health department.

restaurantThe closure is the latest in a number of such enforcements by the agency since the high-profile shutdown of the Valley Plaza food court in late April. The recent closures include a fine-dining restaurant, a fast-food facility and a mom-and-pop burger joint that received the lowest score in the history of the health department, a 4 out of a possible 100.

“I would say when something very prominent happens, like with the food court, there’s so much media attention that we’ve been receiving complaints,” said Michelle Corson of the health department. “So the heightened awareness, plus the ease of reporting incidents with our safe-diner app.”

The health inspection report for Rocky’s Pizza, 2858 Niles St., indicates the vermin infestation is “severe” and has potentially contaminated food equipment, contact surfaces, packaging and utensils.

The restaurant’s owners and employees will be required to attend a recently implemented health department program called “Food School” before the facility is reopened. The county has conducted about five such classes, which feature videos of food inspectors in the field and demonstrations. The class is about two hours long, and participants must pass a test at its conclusion.

“We don’t know of any other county that has done this,” Corson said. We’re very proud of it. It’s an extra step the public health department has taken to say, ‘Listen, you have some clear issues and before you even reopen, we need to go through the basics,’ and coach these facilities back to success.”

They are donuts, not a rubber biscuit: Everyone has a camera, Dunkin’ Donuts edition

Posted on by
Reply

It was business as usual inside a Mendon Dunkin’ Donuts on Uxbridge Street, Massachusetts Thursday night, but former employees are speaking out about what was captured on video last November.

The employees said it shows what an employee did before the store opened that has them coming forward.

A video shows a tray of donuts accidentally spilled on the floor. The female manager picked them up, waited some time and then put them back onto the tray and into the case to be sold.

Liam, who didn’t want his last name used, said to the best of his knowledge the donuts were then sold to customers when the store opened.

He told NewsCenter 5’s Maria Stephanos that he was taken off the schedule after working there for three years. He admitted that when that happened he wasn’t happy so he came forward with the video, but he said the video speaks for itself.

“People are eating food that went to the ground, to the counter, and then putting it into their mouth,” Liam said. “That’s a problem.”

UK grandmother dies after carvery meal: Investigation underway

Posted on by
Reply

A woman who ate a carvery dinner before she jetted off on holiday has died of suspected food poisoning two weeks after a pub visit.

julie.hemmingsGrandmother-of-four Julie Hemmings, 53, tucked in to a carvery meal in a London pub with her husband Mark, 55, brother-in-law Nick Kyriacou, and his wife Trish before the couple flew to Turkey.

But when the pair arrived at the resort the next day, Mrs Hemmings started spewing up ‘red’ vomit and died two weeks later after her condition worsened.

Doctors told her devastated husband that the poison was ‘seeping through her body’ after her bowel had perforated.

An investigation is now under way into the food poisoning claim after the couple and Mr Kyriacou all fell ill with sickness and diarrhea following their meal out.

A Merton Council spokesperson said: ‘Merton Council’s Environmental Health team are carrying out an investigation.