Food Safety News – September 2010
Restaurant owner given suspended jail sentence and banned from food business
A Birmingham restaurant owner has been given a suspended jail sentence and banned from running a food business, after EHOs found live mice in the premises.
During visits to East Pizza in Smallbrook Queensway in 2008, Birmingham EHOs saw mice running around the restaurant and across equipment, including the kebab rotisserie. There were dead mice on sticky boards and a mouse was seen eating a chip.
His defence was that he was not the food business operator but Judge Justice P Farrer found he was ‘wholly in control’.
The judge sentenced Mr Abdolahi to 36 weeks in prison, suspended for two years, and prohibited him from running a food business under the Food Hygiene (England) Regulations 2006. He also ordered him to carry out 200 hours unpaid work and keep in touch with the probation office while he was prohibited.
Mr Abdolahi was ordered to pay £750 towards the council’s £13,900 costs.
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