Toronto gets tough on failing hygiene
Health inspectors in Toronto have closed more than 20 of the city's restaurants in a major crackdown on poor hygiene standards.
More than 3,500 restaurants in the Canadian city have been checked following complaints that many of them failed to comply with health department orders to clean up their act.
Toronto mayor Mel Lastman, who ordered the inspection blitz, has slammed the city's poor restaurant inspection system, which he claimed was "enough to make you sick".
He was reported in this month's Pest Control News magazine as saying: "You go to a restaurant and you figure you're eating pie or steak and you're eating rat shit."
Lastman said the crackdown would last for two or three months, and stressed that restaurants that did not meet health and safety standards would be shut down.
In the past few weeks, more than 20 establishments have been served with emergency closure notices for rat, mouse and cockroach infestations, plus generally unsanitary conditions.
One of them was tofu retailer Yet Sing Co, which was shut down due to sanitation violations, cockroach infestation and structural disrepair, but other Toronto restaurants are reported to be closing down voluntarily to spare themselves the embarrassment of having inspection signs posted outside.
Fewer establishments are now prepared to risk falling foul of Toronto's public health department, but there are worries that there are not enough restaurant inspectors to sustain the blitz.
by Sara Macefield
Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 22-28 June 2000