Laura Payton and Ian Austin
Province
Rats. Bugs. Unclean water. Things you might expect to find in a developing country slum. But they’re also things you can find at some local restaurants.
Vancouver Coastal Health keeps a list of sanitation offenders, highlighting restaurants with problems and the date they were inspected.
Restaurants make the list for reasons ranging from unsanitary conditions and improper food handling to rat and pest infestations.
The objective is consumer awareness, available around the clock with a click of a mouse.
“If you want to eat at Joe Blow’s restaurant, you can go on the web and get up-to-date information,” said Brigitte Baumann, manager of health protection with VCH. “You can access our website 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” (For Restaurant information go to: Vancouver restaurants – beware where you eat at http://www.lestwarog.com/useful_links.html#6) While connoisseurs point to restaurant trends such as organic menus and lite cuisine, the most prevalent VCH restaurant trend seems to be rats.
“Rats are indigenous here, and we’re a harbour city with a lot of grain shipments,” explains Baumann.
“We’re doing a lot of construction in the city, and when old buildings are destroyed the rodents look for a new place to go.” Baumann says the VCH also encourages rodent removal that’s less hazardous than before.
“In the past, they used a lot of chemical pesticides,” she said. “Now we know that these chemicals have side-effects.
“We try to get restaurants to close up entry holes, get rid of water and food, and use traps.
“It takes longer, but it doesn’t have the long-term problems of chemicals.” To access the website, type in vch.ca, then select, in order, public health, environmental health, food safety, and VCH food inspection web.
© The Vancouver Province 2007
