Closure

  • Record 64 food outlets forced to shut in Ireland in 2011

    Posted: January 2nd, 2012 - 2:29am by Doug Powell

    Rodent droppings, maggots on meat and putrid fish were just some of the nasties found by health inspectors in food businesses last year.

    Documents obtained by the Irish Independent reveal how 2011 was the worst year on record for food safety infringements, with a record number of premises forced to close because they posed a grave risk to public health. Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) figures show that 64 restaurants, pubs, shops and other food businesses were served with closure orders last year -- the highest tally since it was established in 1999.

    But the statistics only tell part of the story, as documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the gory details behind the closures.
    Maggots and mouldy meat at one foodstore led to the closure of its butchery department in April.

    An environmental health inspector issued a closure order that remains in force to the butchery section of Cahill's foodstore in Crookstown, Co Cork, after discovering problems including dirty bloodstained walls and flies.

    "Maggots were found on the meat debris collected in the tray under the cutting plate. The meat debris, which had not been removed for some time, was hard, dried out and clumped together and mouldy," the order stated.

    Out-of-date food was a recurring problem at many outlets, with putrid meat and fish leading to a closure order being served on Charlie Stewarts/Seasons 52 in Parnell St, Ennis, Co Clare, in March.

    "Large volumes of malodourous meat and fish were found in refrigerated storage, which had become putrid and were clearly in advanced stages of decomposition," the order said.

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  • Getting more ‘granularity’ into San Francisco’s restaurant grades

    Posted: September 22nd, 2010 - 7:40pm by Doug Powell

    San Francisco is playing catch up with its California brethren and has finally decided to post closure notices on restaurants considered to be health hazards.

    Mission Local reports the president of the Health Commission also promised to propose further policy changes to boost restaurant inspections and help diners more easily find a restaurant’s health score.

    That don’t mean much.

    Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco’s director of occupational and environmental health, said,

    “We serve the entire population of the city,” underscoring the need for information regarding health code compliance to be made publicly available.

    After the meeting, Bhatia said he would advocate for more transparency within the food safety inspection program, including posting inspection scores within five feet of a restaurant’s entrance — which is the policy in cities such as Los Angeles and New York.

    In 2004, Supervisor Chris Daly advocated a letter-grade system for restaurant inspections, which Los Angeles and now New York use. The system would have ranked restaurants by a series of letter grades from A to D, based on health code compliance, and would have required them to post that grade in plain view. The executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association at the time called the grades “scarlet letters.”

    The ordinance faced stiff opposition and was ultimately defeated. The present scoring system was a compromise resulting from that effort, Bhatia said. The system offers more granularity into a restaurant’s health code practices, he said, but conceded that “scores are imperfect.”
     

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