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A Perth Chinese restaurant which shocked a renovation crew – and readers of this website – with its filthy state had twice been the subject of health complaints and both failed and passed council inspections in the seven months before it closed.
Photographs and video footage published by WAtoday.com.au on Monday revealed the terrible conditions in the restaurant kitchen, including vast accumulations of grease, a multitude of cockroaches and a stove-top that was literally falling apart.
The name of the restaurant has not been published to preserve the anonymity of the work crew that removed the fitout, but WAtoday.com.au can reveal it had been the subject of hygiene standard complaints in January 2013 and May 2014.
The restaurant also failed a health inspection by workers from a northern suburbs council less than seven months before it closed its doors, in part because of the presence of cockroaches
Could this level of great build-up and filth have happened in the space of five monts?
"The city undertook an inspection…and the restaurant owners were presented with a written requirement to undertake significant cleaning and arrange pest control for cockroaches," the council's CEO said in a statement.
"The city undertook another inspection approximately seven days later and was satisfied with measures the owners took to address issues raised in the initial inspection."
It is understood council inspectors returned to view the kitchen several times in the two months that followed those inspections but had not been back in the five months that preceded the restaurant closing.
According to the cleanout crew, the restaurant shut its doors of the owner's volition just 48 hours before they found it in putrid shape – a state the council admitted would have seen the venue closed down and owners prosecuted, had it been aware of the dire conditions.
Ironically, the restaurant’s toilet was found to be almost clean enough to eat off.
"If a restaurant was presented in a state exhibited in the photos contained in this story, the owners would expect at a minimum an 'improvement notice' for a kitchen in such an unclean state, coupled with an infringement of up to $1,000 per offence," the council CEO said.
"Without doubt, the amount of pest activity contained in the video would result in a 'prohibition order' to shut the kitchen, and the commencement of prosecution."
While information provided by the council would seem to indicate the restaurant's descent into an unhygienic state happened in the five months before closure, a member of the work crew said that timeline made no sense.
"There is no way what we saw happened in five months. The mess in there was from years of neglect," the worker said.
On top of the health concerns, the worker said the eatery was a fire disaster waiting to happen.
"When we cleared out the drip try from the ventilation we ended up with two five-gallon drums of what was basically fat," the worker said.
"Had there been a fire, it would have taken hold really quickly. You wouldn't have got out of there.
"The food preparation area looked like the dungeon setting from the movie Saw. I still can't fully describe the smell of the place.
"The crew that I was working with said this was one of the worst they had seen. That's one of the worst.
"There are more out there and they are worse. That's frightening."
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