New enforcement policy for Kent restaurants

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WHILE YOU’RE EATING ON CAMPUS, DO YOU EVER WONDER HOW SANITARY THE RESTAURANTS EXACTLY ARE? TV2’S STARR BODI HAS THE STORY.

With a new enforcement policy coming out on March 1, the Kent State Health Department hopes it will help all restaurants in Kent improve on inspections.

“Majority of our food service operations in Kent do an excellent job and they try to strive to be as best as they can,” said Justin Smith, chief sanitarian, “but there are some that refuse to correct certain violations that need to be corrected.”

On-campus, restaurants such as Rosie’s Diner, Eastway Café, Prentice Hall, Subway and Fresco’s Mexican Grill reached risk level IV activity in 2017. With risk level IV, the highest level in Ohio, it deals with concerns about handling or preparing food, reheating bulk quantities of leftover food more than once every seven days and other violations.

Smith did not comment on what the new enforcement policy will include, but it will enforce that restaurants have the same protocol for their food service operations.

Mandy Ulicney, hospitality management lecturer, agreed that the enforcement policy would be a good idea.

“What (Smith’s) eluding to is the fact that there are some restaurants that have been around for, let’s say, 30 years,” she said. “And they’ve been doing things the same way for 30 years, but in the meantime… several requirements have changed from the FDA or the state of Ohio… So you need to adapt to those changes.”

Ulicney takes note of a lot more when she goes out to restaurants than regular customers would because of her profession. Since coming to Kent State in 2012, she hasn’t noticed any issues at restaurants on-campus when it comes to sanitation.

“I can’t speak about any of the other things that people want to say, but I think they (on-campus restaurants) do a really good job in terms of sanitation safety,” Ulicney said.

Smith does “not necessarily” see a difference between on-campus restaurants and off-campus restaurants in terms of cleanliness.

“When you go and do an inspection on campus you kind of know what you’re getting yourself into because you have the student bodies, usually the employees there and you have management staff there that’s pretty consistent from each food service,” Smith said.

Student-workers and staff go through a four-hour training seminar before the start of the semester, according to Smith. He thinks their training should be continuous throughout.

“It’s important to readdress those issues throughout the semester and through the year,” he said. “Just doing that four-hour training at the beginning of year might not necessarily let those roles sink in for them.”

Although Smith could not comment on the type of risk level issues they see in restaurants, he does not think these issues should keep people from eating there.

“You can walk in at any food service at any time and find a violation; it doesn’t mean that it’s ongoing now,” Smith said.

Restaurants do not get shut down based on how many critical violations they receive; however, they do face the possibility of being shut down if they do not fix those violations after their routine inspection, according to Ulicney.

“They’re given many chances,” she said. “So it’s not based on how many things are wrong; it can only be one thing that’s wrong, but if they never fix it and it’s a critical violation… then that’s going to be an issue.”

Even though being a health inspector can create tension between the inspector and the restaurant staff, Smith does not see that as a problem with Kent State.

“They (the university) know we’re just there to help,” he said. “I would say that they take what we say into account and they try to correct it as immediately, if not, hopefully soon.”