COWES RESTAURANT FINED FOR HYGIENE OFFENCES

The Bahar Tandoori Restaurant

The owner of a Cowes business is facing a large bill after a successful Isle of Wight Council Environmental Health Department prosecution.

A total of five hygiene offences were found at The Bahar Tandoori Restaurant at 44 High Street, Cowes during a routine inspection on 4 March 2009, despite previous warnings about similar matters on a number of occasions. Staff had also received coaching by officers of the department in the Safer Food Better Business Pack, a food safety management pack produced by the Food Standards Agency.

These offences were failure to provide and maintain a written food safety management system, failure to put in place a permanent procedure or procedures, failure to ensure that equipment was effectively cleaned and where necessary disinfected, food containers not in good repair and failure to ensure that food was protected against contamination.

Bahar Tandoori Limited and its Sole Director, Abdul Bahar, pleaded guilty, at Newport Magistrates Court (Isle of Wight) on Tuesday 9 March 2010 to the charges and the business has been ordered to pay a fine and costs totalling over £4000.

Amanda Gregory, Isle of Wight Council Environmental Health Manager said

“It is very disappointing that this establishment has been given assistance to comply with the legislation in order to ensure that the food is safe to eat, and yet still failed to comply.

“The Environmental Health team are both educators and enforcers and want to work with businesses to secure compliance wherever possible. Unfortunately, in some cases the only option left is to prosecute.

“This prosecution should serve as a reminder to food operators and the public alike that we will take action to maintain high standards of food safety across the Island”

Anyone can view the latest hygiene ratings of food businesses on the Island by logging on to the council’s Scores on the Doors scheme, which is available at www.iwight.com/scoresonthedoors