Dangerous and dirty takeaway fined following inspections

An Irlam takeaway put its staff and the public in danger due to unguarded machinery and poor cleaning, a court has been told.

Mr Ghazanfer Ali, former owner of Spice 2000, on Liverpool Road, Irlam, pleaded guilty to one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 relating to dangerous machinery and two offences under the Food safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations of failing to comply with general food hygiene requirements by not keeping the premises clean and failing to comply with a hygiene improvement notice when he appeared at Salford and Manchester Magistrates’ court on December 16.

He was fined £1,290 and ordered to pay costs of £800 and a victim surcharge of £43.

The court heard Mr Ali took over the business of a small hot food takeaway selling pizzas, kebabs, burgers and curries, in February 2020, and the registration inspection identified cleaning and lack of an effectively implemented food safety management to be areas of concern, among other matters.

A month later Mr Ali was cautioned for failure to act on these issues.

An environmental health officer visited the shop on May 12, 2020, to check that the issues identified in February had been dealt with.

She found that a guard on a dough rolling machine had been removed for cleaning which meant anyone operating it could get their hand or fingers caught under rollers flattening out the pizza.

The danger was pointed out to Mr Ali and the guard was immediately replaced.

It was clear the premises had not been deep cleaned for some time.

Grease and food debris were building up on surfaces, walls and floor junctions and food equipment and cleaning in the food handling areas was very poor.

Mr Ali and his staff were not properly implementing monitoring and control systems otherwise the poor cleaning, cross contamination and out of date food on the premises would have been identified and dealt with.

Mr Ali was served with a hygiene improvement notice requiring a documented food safety management system to be implemented before June 15, 2020.

An environmental health officer revisited the premises on August 6, to check the notice had been complied with.

The food safety manual had not been reviewed and measures were not being implemented, staff training records were still not fully up to date, cleaning had deteriorated again and the guard on the dough rolling machine had once again been removed for cleaning.

Mr Ali offered no explanation as to why he had not complied with the notice. He told the court he is no longer involved in running the business.

Speaking after the court case, Cllr David Lancaster, lead member for environment, neighbourhoods and community safety, said: “We will not hesitate to take action against food businesses which put people’s health and safety at risk through poor practice.”