Tag Archives: restaurant inspection

No on-site public disclosure: Saskatchewan says it improves access to restaurant inspection info

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Do you ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at your favourite eating establishment? Saskatchewan residents can find out by going to Inspection InSite – a website that shows public health inspector reports for about 5,000 public eateries including restaurants, fast food outlets, caterers, mobile food vendors, ice cream stands, public cafeterias, dining rooms and hospital kitchens.

The province began posting restaurant inspection information online in 2009. However, a new website is more user-friendly and provides more detailed information about infractions.

Tablet technology is replacing hand-written reports by public health inspectors, which eliminates the need for time-consuming transcription, brings more consistency to reporting, and allows real-time updates to the website, Health Minister Dustin Duncan said Tuesday. Since the new electronic system began at the end of March, about 60 per cent of food service facilities have been inspected.

Food safety sucks in some S. Aust. day and agedcare centres

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Eleven daycare centres were among more than 800 food preparation places issued warning notices under food safety laws last year.

dirty.jobs.daycare.e.coliThirteen aged care sites were also given written warnings in 2014-15 because of food safety concerns.

SA Health data from local council inspections shows that more than 9000 food businesses across the state were checked. The vast majority were given approval.

Health Minister Jack Snelling said under the SA Health Food Act Report in 2014-15, local government environmental health officers issued food businesses with 803 written warnings, 328 improvement notices, 114 expiation notices and four prohibition orders.

“Three businesses were prosecuted and found guilty of breaches under the Food Act 2001,” Mr Snelling said.

These businesses were Champion Bakery at Port Wakefield, fined a total of $171,000; Omega Foods at Hindmarsh ($71,000); and Garam Masala Indian Cuisine Dernancourt ($6660).

Mr Snelling noted that businesses are stepping up to new laws.

“What is pleasing to see is that overall the great majority of South Australian food businesses that were inspected complied with food safety standards,” he said.

SA Health Director of Food and Controlled Drugs Dr Fay Jenkins said the public had an important role to play in alerting authorities to potential food safety issues.

“Councils received 1082 complaints and reports from the public, which resulted in 640 inspections,” Dr Jenkins said.

“Of the complaints, the highest percentage related to staff personal hygiene or food handling, unclean premises and pest infestation.

“I encourage anyone with concerns about hygiene or food safety practices in a food business to contact their council who will ensure the matter is investigated and rectified.

Everyone has a camera.

In an ice machine too: Roach infestation forces closure of A-rated Carl’s Jr. in Calif.

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Kern health officials, acting on a customer complaint, have shut down a Bakersfield Carl’s Jr. restaurant because of a cockroach infestation observed months ago by a county inspector who nevertheless issued the fast-food place an “A” rating.

carl's jrThe corporate-owned restaurant on Real Road south of California Avenue was found Monday to be harboring a “severe” infestation, with numerous cockroaches alive and dead, as well as insect eggs, feces and a multi-generational population suggesting roaches were breeding at the site, county environmental health Director Donna Fenton said.

“When we see that type of infestation, our concern is that they can contaminate food contact surfaces, utensils, food packaging — they can even get into the food itself,” said Fenton, who added the county typically closes a couple of restaurants every year because of cockroach infestations.

When the county visited the same Carl’s Jr. July 9, its inspector noted a “vermin infestation” evident by live roaches in the grill area and in an ice machine, among other lesser violations, according to a county report posted online.

cockroach.burgerThe facility earned a score of 91 percent, not as good as the 93.5 percent it received in March but better than its 90 percent score from Dec. 30. In each case the restaurant won an “A” grade, based on its overall points tally.

Fenton said the infestation the county observed in July was not seen as overly problematic because the restaurant had been treated by pest control specialists the night before, and it appeared the roaches were dying. Also, the report asserted the infestation was confined to a limited area.

The county went out again Monday after a customer reported seeing a cockroach on a wall of the restaurant, among other violations, Fenton said.

The restaurant will stay closed until its owner, Carpinteria-based CKE Restaurants Inc., finishes what Fenton called a “deep cleaning,” including steam-cleaning, sealing of cracks and other maintenance. She said the location won’t be allowed to reopen until after it passes a county re-inspection.

CKE declined to answer questions including what had been done to prevent and then address the infestation reported in July. The company issued this written statement: “The health and safety of our customers and employees is always our top priority. We took immediate action to deal with this situation and expect to re-open the location very soon.”

Douglas Powell, a former professor of food safety at Kansas State University who now publishes articles on the subject at barfblog.com, said cockroaches can carry dangerous bacteria and viruses, and that it is the responsibilities of restaurant operators, not government agencies, to ensure food safety. He cautioned against putting too much faith in government inspection reports, which he said represent ”a snapshot in time.“

”Cockroaches are going to be around,“ he said. ”It’s up to the restaurant to take steps to mitigate that.“

And everyone has a camera.

Sushi safety: Celebrated chef vs. NYC health department

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Last week, New York City’s Department of Health closed the popular, acclaimed East Village restaurant Sushi Dojo. The reasons, according to the official report and a statement provided by the DOH, were “a combination of bare hand contact and food out of temperature.”

sushi.dojoThe following day, the restaurant’s Gansevoort Market offshoot, Sushi Dojo Express, was also closed. Somewhat surprisingly, in a statement provided to Eater, Dojo chef David Bouhadana — whose third restaurant, Dojo Izakaya, is still open — wrote that he was closed because of “BS rule, a rule I don’t stand by. Sushi is being ruined [by] gloves, freezing fish and more issues.”

Grub called the chef to talk about what exactly happened, what he’s going to do about it, and why he feels he’s being targeted (an edited version is below — dp).

So, what happened?
The Department of Health, let’s put it this way, the DOH has their rules and their laws, and it is what it is. For sushi, there’s always been a gray area as far as fish, rice, temperatures — everything, really. The rule that applies to me and applies to Taco Bell is no bare-hand contact with raw food.
In sushi, we’re taught to be clean, hygienic, and professional. If you are a clean chef, you don’t need gloves. When a health inspector walks in, we all have our code word, we all have our drill: Put the gloves on, smile to the inspector, they walk in, they walk out. You’re good for six months. The problem is my restaurant is designed so when you first walk in you see me, and through the windows you can see me. But this wasn’t an issue before. Sushi Yasuda has open windows. Sushi Nakazawa has open windows. Every sushi bar has open windows.

When did it become an issue then?
The tipping point came when the inspector told me to throw food away in front of my customers. When an inspector walks into a restaurant, like Eleven Madison Park or wherever, they’re in the kitchen. Nobody knows they’re there. When you walk into my restaurant, I am positioned front and the center.
… This is not a disgusting restaurant. There’s no feces, there’s no vomit, there’s no bacteria (wow, that must be something – dp), there’s no sign of any kind of health-hazardous anything. This is a personal issue. I’ve been talking to a lot of sushi chefs for years now, and right now it’s a huge moment, and of course everyone is behind me, but no one really wants me to use their name or get involved in controversy. But, well, what do we do?

Philadelphia: Ingredients not on menu

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The Philadelphia Inquirer continues its efforts to improve restaurant inspection disclosure in the City of Brotherly Love.

smiley.faces.denmark.rest.inspectionThe Philadelphia Department of Public Health keeps its restaurant inspection reports secret for 30 days, unnecessarily risking the health of unsuspecting diners at restaurants with serious hygiene problems.

Philadelphia’s is the only health department in the nation’s 10 largest cities that has such an asinine policy, as Philly.com reported last week. Phoenix takes 72 hours to process its reports and make them public, while the rest – including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles – publish them immediately.

Within Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh also posts inspection reports immediately. So do Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester Counties. Across the Delaware, Camden and Burlington Counties post the information online within five days. A metropolis like Philadelphia should be able to keep up.

qr.code.rest.inspection.gradeA health department spokesman told Philly.com that sanitation reports are kept confidential for a month to give establishments time to challenge them. It’s fine to allow restaurants to appeal inspectors’ findings, but not at the expense of diners who deserve to know if a restaurant’s cleanliness has been questioned. Besides, there have been only four such appeals since 2009.

The 30-day grace period is too long. It suggests that the health department lacks confidence in its inspectors’ ability to evaluate sanitary conditions. If that is the case, then rather than err on the side of a restaurant that may have a rat or roach problem, the department should improve its inspectors’ skills and reduce the possibility of inaccurate assessments.

The department’s website (www.phila.gov/health/foodprotection/FoodSafetyReports.html) notes that every inspection report is a “snapshot” that “may not be representative of the overall, long-term sanitation and safety status of an establishment.” That’s an important caveat. But it doesn’t mean that having carefully cultivated a reputation for fine dining, Philadelphia should risk it by being too slow to point out which of its restaurants should be avoided.

13 sickened: Family sues after girl, 4, was sickened in Seattle area E. coli food-truck outbreak

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JoNel Aleccia of The Seattle Times writes that the family of a 4-year-old Issaquah girl hospitalized with E. coli food poisoning last summer is suing the operators of a farmers market food truck tied to her illness and a dozen others.

Elizabeth BuderElizabeth Buder was among 13 people sickened in August and September after eating food from the Los Chilangos food truck operated by Menendez Brothers, LLC of Bellevue. The firm, which operates two food trucks that serve seven farmers markets in King and Snohomish counties, was shuttered temporarily in late August by officials at Public Health — Seattle & King County — after an investigation into the outbreak.

A complaint filed this month in King County Superior Court states that the child, known as “Scout,” shared food with her parents from a Los Chilangos truck on Aug. 8 at the Issaquah Farmer’s Market. She fell ill days later and was eventually admitted to Seattle Children’s, where doctors confirmed an E. coli O157: H7 infection according to the complaint prepared by Marler Clark, a Seattle firm that specializes in food-safety cases.

The girl developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a life-threatening complication of E. coli poisoning, and kidney failure. She was hospitalized for three weeks and will require ongoing monitoring and care. She was only recently cleared to return to school, her father said.

King County officials identified no specific source of the E. coli outbreak. The bacteria are often linked to undercooked ground beef, but can be spread through produce such as spinach and sprouts or through foods such as unpasteurized juice and raw milk.

Los Chilangos was allowed to reopen on Sept. 2 after an inspection. King County officials also shuttered Eastside Commercial Kitchen, a commissary where Los Chilangos and other vendors prepared food, but allowed that site to reopen on Sept. 8. Health officials said it’s possible the source of the outbreak may never be determined.

40% of eateries operating without licence in Hindustan region

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Despite getting an extension on the deadline for online registration under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, about 40% vendors in the district are yet to get themselves registered with the district health department.

hindustanThe deadline for registration has been extended thrice in the past one-and-a-half year. After the expiry of the previous deadline on August 4, the health department had further extended the deadline to February 4, 2016.

However, sources in the health department said that only around 1,000 registrations have been made and 260 licences have been issued in the district through the online portal over the past 19 months.

There are about 20,000 eateries in the district, but as many as 8,000 food operators are operating without proper licences and are violating safety norms.

Moreover, there is no provision of fine against violators as the state government had extended the deadline for applying. “If the government did not extend the date, we could have started issuing challans to violators,” said a senior health official, on the condition of anonymity.

District health officer Rajpal Singh said, “We are doing our level best to create awareness and motivate food operators to get registered under the act. But there is no fear of fine among people.”

An applicant can log on to the government website http://foodlicensing.fssai.gov.in/and can register with the health department after furnishing complete details of the business and submitting the fee amount.

New Mexico restaurant types on board with new food safety regulations

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There are proposed changes coming down the line for New Mexico restaurants, regulations that impact how food is heated and training requirements for restaurant employees.

In a post on its website, the New Mexico Restaurant Association outlined some of the proposed changes by the New Mexico Environment Department.

For example, each restaurant must have a Certified Food Protection Manager (CFPM), a food safety certification achieved through taking courses and passing an exam.

Also new is that restaurant employees working directly with food, such as those that deal with unpackaged foods and food equipment, must take a basic food safety course. The course will cover such topics as preventing cross-contamination in food and how to property clean and sanitize.

After the course is completed, the person will get his or her Food Handlers Card, which would be required after 30 days of working in a restaurant. The cost to the employee will be between $15 and $35.

Malaysian health types launch crackdown on dirty eateries

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The Federal Territories health department has launched a crackdown on eateries, stalls and restaurants to curb the spread of typhoid in the city.

malaysia.hawkerDepartment director Datuk Dr Narimah Nor Yahya said Ops Premis Makanan was launched as part of efforts to address the disease.

“To date, our task force has inspected 160 premises in Kuala Lumpur and 10 were shut down for failing inspection guidelines as outlined by the Food Act 1983 and Food Act 2009,” she said.

Speaking during a surprise inspection of a popular hawker centre in Kampung Baru, Dr Narimah appealed to the public to be mindful of where they eat.

Workers at the hawker centre were seen scrambling to clear mounds of dirty dishes and hurriedly washing the floor of their kitchen areas.

Two stalls were served with closure notices for failing to meet spection standards.

Blood samples and contact details of all foreign workers employed at the centre were also collected.

She said it was unacceptable for ice cubes to be stored in dirty open containers and for workers to use their bare hands to handle ice.

“Look at the flies buzzing around the raw meat. This place is definitely getting closed,” she said of one eatery, adding that if any workers were not vaccinated for typhoid, charges would be brought against the employer.

“It is mandatory for restaurant or hawker centre operators to have all their workers vaccinated,” she said.

 

Iowa school dismissed early because of suspected food poisoning outbreak among staff

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Another catered meal, another staff (staph) outbreak.

Roosevelt High SchoolReminds me of those catered lunches Kansas State would get from Jimmy Johns, even though sprout outbreaks were rampant.

Classes at Roosevelt High School were dismissed early Thursday because a large number of the school’s staff was struck down with suspected food poisoning.

In an e-mail to students’ parents Principal Kevin Biggs said they don’t have enough staff to continue with normal activities, so the decision was made to dismiss school early and cancel all indoor school activities after school. Outdoor activities are still going forward.

Parent-teacher conferences are being postponed.

The Polk County Health Department believes the staff is suffering from food poisoning.

Biggs said the food served to the staff was from a catered luncheon Wednesday, with food prepared by two outside businesses, and was not served to students.