Posted: April 3rd, 2009 - 2:25pm by Katie Filion

Kensington Market in Toronto, Canada is a great place to shop, but with repeated rodent issues, may not be the place to eat. The National Post reveals that five businesses within blocks of each other in the Kensington area have been shut down and fined.

One of the closed establishments, Fong On Foods Ltd. was closed March 2 and fined $25,000 after being convicted on charges of food contamination and cockroach infestation.

Jim Chan, manager of healthy environments at Toronto Public Health, said fines can balloon from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands on repeat offences.

“In this case, the operator did not maintain the level of compliance after the first closure on Sept. 5, 2008. Fines are usually higher on repeat offences.”

The rodent-popular area has received a lot of media attention, largely due to consumer cell phone pictures of rats in windows (see image, right from blogTO).