Over 100 Jeddah restaurants closed this month

Jeddah, Dec 22: The Jeddah municipality closed down this month more than 100 restaurants and eateries across the city due to poor hygienic conditions as part of a campaign to ensure compliance with hygiene and safety specifications, Assistant Mayor for Branch Municipalities Nasser Al-Miteb said.

“The most common violations noticed were the sales of rotten food, items with expired validity dates or without information labels about the source of manufacture. Some facilities were found to have poor storage and handling equipment, invalid licenses and filthy kitchens with insects and rodents,” Miteb said, adding that all the violations had been recorded and penal measures taken.

“The restaurants were shuttered with a view to protecting the health of customers and ensuring that the food supplied in the eateries is safe,” he said.

He added that the restaurants had been closed temporarily until the owners corrected the irregularities. He also warned that if the outlets were reopened without permission, they would be shuttered again and could only open following an additional fine for violating the closure order. Miteb said that the periodic campaigns against restaurants would continue with 14 inspection teams of branch municipalities accompanied by teams of the municipal general administration for commercial licensing and monitoring.

In a related development, a municipal report said the general administration for licensing and monitoring markets in Jeddah inspected with the help of branch municipalities 17,608 establishments in the health sector last year and discovered 5,109 health establishments violating various regulations. While 12,499 businesses fulfilled hygienic specifications during the period, 1,681 shops were found in breach of various regulations. The report put the number of fast food outlets and restaurants inspected last year at 4,803, in addition to 682 bakeries and groceries, 205 supermarkets and warehouses, 243 water bottling plants and food manufacturing units. The most common violations committed in those establishments were related to poor hygienic conditions, lack of valid licenses, selling stale food, poor preservation and handling of food materials, lack of general cleanliness and lack of any valid health cards for workers, he said.

Out of 1,394 food and water samples taken for testing, 854 samples were found to be good while 540 were of poor quality, the report said.

During the inspections, municipal officers also discovered a number of other utilities in violation of the law such as dress designer shops, fuel stations, tire changing workshops and shops selling jewelry. The violations included lack of a license or failure to renew the current one, the display of goods outside the shops, poor hygiene and the practice of unlicensed activities.