Kaneohe restaurant fined for removing Health Department yellow card
STAR-ADVERTISER ARCHIVE
This is the yellow placard issued when Health Department inspectors find food safety violations.
A Thai restaurant in the Windward City Shopping Center faces a $7,000 fine for removing a yellow “Conditional Pass” placard that had been posted at its entrance.
Health Department inspectors posted the yellow card on Feb. 2 after finding food safety violations.
The Chao Phya Thai Restaurant corrected the violations and now has a green placard indicating that it has met all requirements.
The violations included employees not washing hands before putting on gloves; not changing gloves when switching from washing dishes to preparing food; and holding perishable foods at improper refrigeration temperatures.
During a follow-up inspection Feb. 4, the yellow placard was not on the front door and there were still outstanding violations, the Health Department said.
Only Health Department employees are allowed to post or remove such placards.
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On Thursday, a restaurant employee told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that there was a misunderstanding because of her limited English, and that the original placard had been posted inside the restaurant rather than at the entrance.
A second follow-up inspection Feb. 8 confirmed that all violations had been rectified and the restaurant received its green placard.
The company may contest the notice of violation and ask for a hearing.
“Since the start of the restaurant placarding program in 2014, this is only the third incident involving tampering with a placard,” said Peter Oshiro, environmental health program manager. “Our Hawaii food industry’s participation in the program has been impressive.”
The Health Department’s Food Safety Program has conducted nearly 12,000 inspections since July 2014 and issued more than 9,500 green “Pass” placards, 2,400 yellow “Conditional Pass” placards and three red “Closed” placards.
27 responses to “Kaneohe restaurant fined for removing Health Department yellow card”
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Why remove the yellow placard? Only making things worse. Customers now thinking if they should eat at your restaurant. You’re in the news for removing the yellow placard, and have to pay a $7,000 fine. You made corrections, and have the green card again. Yellow card isn’t as bad as a red one. No make sense…
you know the story, the owner has limited English comprehension and with that excuse may be subject to no fine or less of one in my opinion.
How nice to enter the US without having proper English language skills and able to use that as an excuse!
The only English that a immigrant needs to know is, Where is the nearest Social Security Office located?
“Selective” knowledge of the English language. When in trouble, immediately claim a lack of understanding of the English language, and rules and regulations. But, English is amazingly understood and conversed when the same people are thanked, praised, and other positive gestures.
Mama Toy has been running that restaurant for more than 20 years. She speaks English just phone. You are gullible board of health if you believe that.
But apparently I can’t write English just fine!
me no speak rail.
While I’m sure the root cause was a misunderstanding, it’s not an excuse. The health department rules are in place for public health and safety. If the Health Department allows a lack of understanding of the rules as an excuse, it will open the door to many restaurants being allowed to skirt the law and claim a “misunderstanding”.
OUCH!
“a misunderstanding because of her limited English”……bull crap
Overused excuse by the immigrants when they are in trouble. No can speak English. That’s what I hear this Chinese lady say to the bus driver when she refused to feed the free box. She said, no can speak English as she walked pass me sitting in the front. I exclaimed out loud to her, You want twenty dollars? She turned her head towards me and said an emphatic, YES. Then I said, See, you do understand English. Everyone on the bus was LOL,LOL, LOL!
Clever
Placard is waste of time!!!
waste of time for who?
The Placard works for me. You don’t get green you don’t get my green. Get it?
I got sick eating at restaurants with green placards a couple of times.
Favorite excuse for those FOP’s. No understand English. Maybe but they sure all know the American presidents on the money.
Probably not a good idea to eat at that restaurant. DOH will have to keep on top of them seems like to make sure they do not backslide. Bad habits are hard to break.
Thats right, no speekee or reed engrish but they know that Benjamin Franklin is more important than Andrew Jackson who is more important than George Washington. Also know when under reporting income, make sure it is from cash revenue and not charge card payments that are easily tracked.
If an unscrupulous establishment would do something like this, who knows what they really do to the food, or how they treat your credit card data. Would not trust.
One of the yellow placards was at the Walgreen’s in The Market City Shopping Center, so one never knows. This is near Kaimuki, in case it was not readily known.
So what’s a little digging of the nose buggers? Adds a little salt, by the way.
Going part time at auto repair class at LCC, back in the 1980s, the soap could not remove the grease under the fingernails. The next day, I went to my lunch wagon chef job to mix some bread crumbs into the ground beef to make meat loaf. When I pulled my bare hands, no glove law back then, out it was so clean under my fingernails, I had to yell out loud a big, Wow!.Hence, why I do not order meat loaf out ever again.Unless I am making at home with gloves on.
And I lost my Band-Aid on my hand from cutting it in auto class inside of the meat loaf mix. Still bugs me today, where it ended up.
I see some windows on a restaurant with two green placards next to each other. So confusing.
I still eat at a restaurant with this yellow sign on the window. Haven’t gotten sick.
Too many harassment laws like this one in Hawaii.
Too bad if this incident erases some of the genuine concern and good will generated by past Star-Advertiser articles about Mama Toy’s struggle to keep this place open after the untimely death of her daughter. While having English as a second language is no excuse for its removal, perhaps future placards could add “Minimum penalty for unauthorized removal of this placard is $7,000.00” to the warning that already exists at the bottom. In fact, enlarge the type face for the warning to double its present size.