Food-safety violations land 47 Brisbane venues in court

From rats’ nests and cockroaches to hand basins without clean water, almost 50 food venues were taken to court by Brisbane City Council last year for serious food-safety breaches.

New data reveals that Brisbane had 23.5 per cent of the state’s licensed venues in 2023-24 – and 100 per cent of its food-safety prosecutions.

From some 4200 inspections, the city council issued 187 fines – totalling almost $150,000 – and 455 improvement notices, which act as warnings.

Brisbane City Council issued 187 food-safety fines and prosecuted 47 businesses in the 2023-24 financial year.Credit: Adobe Stock

For serious food-safety breaches and repeat offences, the council took 47 businesses to court, where a further $670,000 in penalties were meted out.

Those violations included 41 instances of cockroaches found in venues – in two cases, in the food – and 14 sightings of rat droppings.

A rats’ nest was reportedly found in one location, and a live rodent inside a trap at another.

Food handling and hygiene factored into 11 violations, including two cases where hand basins were not connected to clean water.

The council’s City Standards chair, Sarah Hutton, said most businesses “do the right thing”.

“Our hospitality scene plays a huge role in creating vibrant suburban precincts and … the safe handling of food is an important part of any food service business,” she said.

Brisbane City garnered the most prosecutions – although some businesses incurred multiple actions – followed by Fortitude Valley, Sunnybank Hills, and Upper Mount Gravatt.

These same suburbs topped the counts for fines and complaints.

Across Brisbane’s almost 9000 venues, the council logged just under 1300 complaints during the year-long reporting period.

While the suburbs that attracted the most attention were largely influenced by their number of food venues – one in seven cited Brisbane or the CBD as their trading address – Forest Lake received a disproportionate number of infringement notices, despite having fewer than 1 per cent of the registered food venues.

Queensland Health reported standard rates of food-borne illnesses in 2024, including salmonella and campylobacter infections – the two most common types of bacteria responsible for food poisoning (gastroenteritis).

Dr David Harley, a senior staff specialist in Public Health Medicine from Queensland Health, said unsafe food-handling practices and improper cooking could cause infection.

“Campylobacter, specifically, very commonly comes from chicken, and it’s consequently extremely important that chicken is adequately cooked,” Harley said.

However, he said most food-poisoning cases – which include symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting, stomach pain, and nausea – were caused by viruses.

“Norovirus is a reasonably common cause … rotavirus and adenovirus can also cause gastroenteritis. They’re extremely common in children, especially children under three in daycare.”

The council offers free food-safety training for local businesses and provides guides for regulation and standard minimum practices on its website.

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