A number of proprietors of lodging houses and restaurants in the Bourda area are expected to appear before the City Council on August 28 to show cause why their operations should not be closed after they were found operating under insanitary conditions.
Stabroek News
August 20, 2001
A decision was made at the last statutory meeting to have the owner of the Brazilian barbecue cum lodging house and restaurant, Maria Ranmunda Lopes Moura, appear before council at the next meeting after a number of councillors objected to the insanitary condition of the hotel and restaurant. At the same meeting it was decided that council should inspect other hotels and restaurants in the area and should they be found not to be observing the council's laws they also should be made to appear before council.
A press release from the Public Relations Office of the Mayor & City Council (M&CC) stated that on Wednesday last the acting Medical Officer of Health, the Chief Engineer, the Chief Meat and Food Inspector and other officials visited several lodging houses and restaurants and verbally instructed the owners to cease operations, as the conditions under which they operated were unhealthy.
The officers visited the Brazilian-Bar-B-Que restaurant and lodging house which is situated at 47 Robb Street, Bourda and found it to be an illegal makeshift bottom house arrangement, where the food preparation area was external and exposed to insanitary conditions.
Additionally, unauthorized work was carried out - the construction of wooden sheds and other attachments to the main building -defying the boundary regulations as prescribed by the Municipal and District Councils Act, Chapter 28:01.
Another hotel, Rockies International Hotel & Bar, owned by Carmen Dick at Lot 43 Light Street, Bourda, according to the press release has not fulfilled the basic public health standards. It was found that there is poor ventilation to lodgers' rooms, defective mattresses and other furniture. Fruits and vegetables were stored on the ground and the servicing surfaces were said to be defective.
The release further stated that a shed was constructed beyond the stipulated boundary line.
The officials also moved in on the Brazilian Restaurant situated at 76 Light Street, Bourda, and found that it is managed in unhealthy circumstances. They found that there was an absence of running water and a washroom while the soil pipe runs above the area where tables and chairs were placed for customers.
Another establishment, Sa-Loon Chinese restaurant at Light and Robb streets, Bourda reportedly failed to comply with the basic public health regulations. Foods are said to be prepared in open air in the vicinity of occupied kennels and other unwholesome conditions.
At some of the restaurants there was the absence of proper grease traps to the kitchen facilities and this continued to affect the drainage system in the city.
The owners of the restaurants are expected to appear before council in keeping with the City Government By-Law Part 4, Section 03: which states that "It shall not be lawful for any person to establish or keep an eating-house unless the same is registered with the Town Clerk.
Under the same by-law, at section 101 (1) it is stated: "In every case in which any person may be deprived under these by-laws of a right to carry on any barber's shop, common lodging-house or eating-house for any sufficient reason, such person shall be entitled to show cause before the council why he should not be deprived of such right."
Further, "In every such case the Town Clerk shall give seven days' notice to such person of his intention to bring before the council any representations against such person or his barber's shop, common lodging-house or eating-house within seven days after being so served with the said notice, the person to be affected shall lodge with the Town Clerk the grounds upon which he proposes to resist the said deprivation."
The same section states: "Upon notice of a day fixed for hearing of the representations and any objections thereto the person affected may appear before the council to be heard orally if he so desires."
Additionally at Section 76, the by-law states: "The Town Clerk upon a resolution of the council shall make an order directing that any eating-house, which may be deemed by the council unhealthy, insanitary or undesirable... shall be closed upon a date specified in a notice in writing giving such a direction and thereafter if the keeper of such eating-house shall keep open such eating-house, he shall be guilty of an offence on every day during which he shall do so after the said date."