Dirty kitchen leads to record £42,000 penalty (From This is Hampshire)

Dirty kitchen leads to record £42,000 penalty

12:27pm Friday 17th August 2007

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A POPULAR Hampshire pub has received record-breaking fines and costs after environmental health inspectors found filthy conditions in its kitchens.

Grimy walls, grease-clogged vents and out-of-date food have landed the brewery with a huge fine for the second time in less than two years.

A dish of mouldy paté and a container full of spoiled prawns were among the catalogue of hygiene breaches found by environmental health inspectors at The Dolphin in Botley's High Street.

The failings have cost owners Greene King £42,500. The huge total, which includes £3,000 costs, is a new Hampshire record. It comes just a week after O'Neills in Winchester was fined £36,000 for having a kitchen encrusted in dirt, grease and dried blood.

To make matters worse for The Dolphin, it was this week "named and shamed" on a list of food outlets with unsatisfactory hygiene standards.

In October 2005, Greene King had to fork out another £17,000 because council officials repeatedly found areas of the kitchen caked in grease.

The chain, which runs 1,200 pubs across the country, has now been fined again after pleading guilty to 11 charges relating to hygiene failings last summer at its busy Hungry Horse-branded establishment.

Southampton Magistrates' Court heard officials from Eastleigh Borough Council visited the pub seven times between July and October.

On five of those trips they found evidence of hygiene laws being broken, ranging from food past its use-by date being kept in the fridges to unclean walls, surfaces and a washbasin. Despite repeated warnings to the pub's management team and the brewery, the inspectors found the same rules being broken on almost every subsequent visit.

In mitigation, Naomi Gilchrist said Greene King had suspended and subsequently dismissed the house managers shortly after the first inspection, on July 26 last year.

New manager Ed Bancroft was installed on August 3 and, although inspections after that date also showed failings, he has been backed by bosses.

"The previous managers had been with the company for nine years and, although they knew what they were supposed to do they weren't doing it," said Miss Gilchrist.

"That created difficulties for the relief manager who took over a pub where the chef was setting a bad example.

"He was sacked, but it took time for the relief manager to get to grips with everything."

Miss Gilchrist said the company took hygiene seriously, and management regularly conducted their own visits to ensure standards were being upheld.

"It's not in the company's interests to operate a premises below acceptable levels," she said.

"There were more than 20 visits to The Dolphin between January and September last year. In January 2006, the area manager ordered them to close the kitchen and not reopen it until he was satisfied it was in order."

Magistrates ordered Greene King to pay £10,000 for each of two counts of marketing for sale food which is unfit and unsafe for human consumption. The company received a further seven fines of £2,500 for uncleanliness and keeping food past its best-before date, and two more of £1,000 each for failing to monitor fridge temperatures.

Magistrates said they had given the company "substantial" credit for pleading guilty. They said that, despite the lessons of the 2005 conviction, Greene King had failed to ensure standards in public health, leading to a "large number of alarming incidents" .

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