Four cases of salmonella are being investigated by Hamilton’s public health department (that’s the Hamilton in Canada).

Public health says it believes the cases are connected to Eat a Pita restaurant on Main Street East at Kenilworth Avenue. The restaurant remained open after it took corrective measures following an inspection, and is being inspected again Thursday.

The public health department in Hamilton, Ontario (that’s in Canada) is failing to properly monitor Hamilton's restaurants.

But a Hamilton restaurant with mouth-shaped urinals in the men’s room is attracting attention (OK, not from public health inspectors).

The Hamilton Spectator reports that an audit presented to city council yesterday shows the city isn't meeting provincial standards for food safety inspections.

It should have performed 4,700 routine inspections last year, but missed that target by 1,200.

The audit also found restaurants and food services with repeat problems weren't consistently penalized. Out of 450 establishments with multiple infractions, only six were ticketed in 2009.

Ann Pekaruk, the city's director of audit services, said her department couldn't find an adequate reason why the inspections weren't completed.

But there is one Hamilton restaurant that has attracted attention.

After eight months of refusing to give in to pressure from women’s rights groups, politicians and threats of boycotts, the National Post reports a Hamilton restaurant has agreed to take down the controversial mouth-shaped urinals in its men’s restroom.

The Honest Lawyer in Hamilton bought the urinals, which have big, glossy red lips, in Europe and installed them in the restroom three years ago, said Renee Roth, the restaurant’s operations manager and partner, but it didn’t get any negative attention until recently.

“The people started saying it was misogynist, sexist and hurtful. That’s not what we meant for it,” Ms. Roth says. “I saw it as a simple novelty. A decoration in my bathroom. But we didn’t want to confuse people to think we support the things the activists were accusing us of.”
 

It’s been 27 years since I served time in an Ontario correctional institution where I got all corrected and rehabilitated.

I never saw a health inspector. But apparently they do check out the jail food. Good thing too. The Milton, Ontario, food production facility – the ‘Hurst --provides 9,000 meals per day to approximately 4,500 inmates at seven Ontario correctional facilities. And listeria was found last week.

Dr. David Williams, Acting Chief Medical Officer of Health, is alerting individuals who were incarcerated in seven provincial correctional institutions between November 13 and 16, 2008 of a possible exposure to Listeria monocytogenes.

On November 21, 2008, the operator of a correctional services food production facility in Milton informed the Halton Region Health Department that food and environmental samples taken during routine surveillance at the facility had tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes.

The tests relate to samples taken from food that may have been consumed between November 13 and November 16, 2008.

As a result of the positive tests, the Halton Region Health Department issued an order to the operator, Eurest Dining Services, to cease production and distribution of food from the facility and to immediately prepare and implement a plan to sanitize the plant and equipment.

There are no reported cases of listeriosis.