We mentioned yesterday that a restaurant, which ranks high on our map of Florida’s 50 most fined, might be about to lose its license. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation got back to us today with a confirmation. Sort of.
The business in question is the Peking Tokyo Buffet in Deerfield Beach, which ranks third on our map of 50 most-fined since 2005 with a grand total of $18,650. Alexis Antonacci, spokesperson for the DBPR, said the state had begun the process of revoking the restaurant’s license but suspended the process pending a change of ownership.
Frankly, that raises more questions than it answers for us.
The Peking Tokyo appeared in the state’s October disciplinary file with 21 new violations to go along with the 36 it already had since January 1, 2005. In most cases, new violations carry new fines, especially when they are large in number and critical in nature. Not this time. Peking Tokyo’s violation count increased by 56 percent but it’s cumulative fine stayed the same.
And we’re talking critical violations indeed. Check the state’s file on this place, unless you just ate. The phrase “Critical. Presence of insects/rodents. Animals prohibited” shows up several times. Food was found stored in a potentially hazardous manner and, as they often do, inspectors reported accumulations of slime on soda dispensers. The list goes on.
The situation was bad enough to launch a license revocation but all of that stopped as a result of the pending change in ownership. Antonacci said the new license number probably will remain the same and, assuming the sale goes through, the state will not automatically reinspect the business before it reopens under new managment. State law requires two inspections per year per restaurant, she said.
But what about all those fresh critical violations? Are the old owners allowed to just sell the place and walk away unscathed after being cited for potentially endangering public health and safety to the point where they would have lost the license had they not sold it? Apparently so. Antonacci said Florida restaurant licenses apply mainly to the actual restaurant facilities more than the owners.
That raises another question. What if the old owners want to move across town or, even worse, to Tampa Bay to acquire the license of some other restaurant facility and pick up where they left off?
Antonacci said she would get back to us on that one. Meantime, the more we learn about restaurant safety in Florida, the more we want to eat at home.