Brisbane City restaurant shut down, fined $15k over cockroaches
A Brisbane city restaurant has been slapped with a $15,000 fine after health inspectors found live and dead cockroaches and pest excrement in the kitchen, among a combined 50 food safety offences.
Police & Courts
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A Brisbane city restaurant has permanently closed and been slapped with a $15,000 fine after health inspectors found live and dead cockroaches and pest excrement in the kitchen.
Yee Ching Tsui and her business Morning The Peak faced the Brisbane Magistrates Court on a combined 50 food safety offences relating to improper food storage, poor cleanliness and cockroach presence in the kitchen of the He She Eat Hong Kong Cuisine restaurant.
Brisbane City Council prosecutor Anna Swindley said the charges related to two separate inspections by council officers in April and June of last year.
She said while many of the offences were relatively minor, the most concerning aspect of the offending was the presence of live and dead cockroaches and cockroach excrement throughout the kitchen of the restaurant located in Post Office Square on Queen Street.
Other breaches included foods being improperly stored and left open to contamination, grease and dirt build up on surfaces and the ground and poor maintenance.
Ms Swindley said Tsui had been extremely cooperative with investigators, had hired a professional industrial cleaner between the two inspections and had undertaken regular pest control measures.
“Apart from the presence of cockroaches it’s accepted by Brisbane City Council that the remaining breaches are in fact quite minor,” she said.
“It is the case that the combination of cleanliness issues, maintenance issues and the presence of pests often are seen together in cases such as this and this is because poor the poor storage of food and the failure to clean can provide a food source for pests.”
The court heard Tsui had only taken over the business in late 2018 before becoming severely ill causing her to hire someone else to run the business while she was away receiving medical treatment.
Tsui said she had spent all her savings on the restaurant and had borrowed $40,000 for a friend to keep it going but was finally forced to permanently close the business.
The court heard she had gone to great lengths to rectify the food safety issues after the April inspection and had enlisted regular pest control, got extra food handling training for her staff and hired a commercial kitchen cleaning company.
“I am very regretful and sorry for this case,” Tsui told the court.
“I sincerely apologise...I hope you can forgive me.”
Tsui, who now works two jobs including as a registered nurse, supports her family in Hong Kong and said she found it very difficult and challenging to run the business, especially after becoming ill.
Magistrate Wendy Cull took Tsui’s cooperation with investigators, early plea and repeated attempts to improve the business into account in sentencing, noting also the challenges of COVID-19 on businesses and people.
She fined Tsui $1500 and recorded no conviction and fined the business $15,000.
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