Dozens of private pools and restaurants shut down following health inspections

Free-roaming rodents, poor food sanitation practices and non-chlorinated hot tubs are just some examples of health violations that forced the temporary closure of dozens of establishments since the new year.

Since the beginning of January, 24 restaurants and grocery stores have been temporarily ordered to close, according to the latest provincial report on health-related establishment closures. 

Among the trouble spots was Jing Jing Asian Food Restaurant for evidence of a rodent infestation and "failure to sanitize utensils." The Pacific Avenue restuarant closed its doors for 17 days starting on June 13.

Asoyama Sushi Restaurant got temporarily shuttered in early April for preparing food under unsanitary conditions and failing to prevent "the entry and presence of rodents." 

Nineteen privately-owned swimming pools or hot tubs, most of which are found in apartment buildings or hotels across the province, have also been ordered temporarily closed.

Edgewood Estates, an apartment complex in North Kildonan, was closed in early March after it was found "operating a whirlpool without any disinfectant."

'Keep it clean, keep it cold, keep it hot'

Peter Parys, the provincial director of environmental health, says that the most egregious violations are generally those than can cause serious illness.

"Anything that can lead to the contamination of food and growth of bacteria or organisms to a point that it can cause serious illness," he said.

He says an example of contamination would be juices from raw ground beef dripping onto vegetables intended to be served uncooked.

• 12 Manitoba eateries closed this summer for health code violations

• Manitoba Health closes restaurants, supermarkets for rodents, other infractions

Parys, who oversees a team of 45 health inspectors and five managers across the province, says that in simplistic terms the key to safe food handling is to "keep it clean, keep it cold and keep it hot".

"[These] are three very, very high level rules that anybody can follow, and that's kind of the basis of what our work is. It's obviously much more complex, but that's kind of what we're looking at," said Parys.

Serious problems far and few in between

Peter Parys says that by and large most restaurant and pool owners co-operate with his team and try their best to comply with regulations.

"We inspect over 10,500 food establishment and we have an inventory of about 700 pools, so you're talking a big big number and so the number of places that we actually run into serious problems with very small," he says.