He knows why so many Kensington Market and Chinatown–area restaurants get closed, and just how bad a bad kitchen can get. What else the head of Toronto Public Health's food safety program knows—and why he's still not afraid to go out for dinner.
Jim Chan, head of Toronto Public Health’s food-safety program, has been a food inspector in Toronto for 34 years, and no one knows more about what’s going on in the city’s kitchens than he does—for better or worse. We ventured into his cluttered (but clean! very clean!) office, and asked him to give The Grid the scoop.
So what does it take for a restaurant to get shut down by Toronto Public Health?
Say an inspector is conducting a routine inspection, they would go through a risk assessment: If they see some hazardous food, they can measure the temperature. If they have reason to believe that there’s a food-safety issue—like meat or sauces that have been sitting around at room temperature for too long—that would be listed as a “crucial” infraction. Then they’ll go look at the refrigeration temperature. If the refrigeration is way above 4˚C, they would get another crucial infraction. All of this would most likely generate a conditional pass.
But if, on top of that, the inspector starts seeing evidence of an infestation—rodent droppings, cockroaches, garbage on the kitchen floor, leaky plumbing—and if it appears that the operator has made no attempt to actually control those problems, the inspector can issue a closure order, which says you have to shut down your business and you can’t open until we do a re-inspection to confirm everything is done. It’s like a tipping point between a conditional pass and a closure.
And that tipping point is the inspector feeling that the place poses an immediate danger to the public?
Yes, that’s right.
Has your favourite place to eat ever been shut down? Find out on our interactive map of every restaurant, grocery store, café and take-out joint that Toronto Public Health has ordered closed since 2001.
When people look at our map of closures, they’re going to see a concentration of problems downtown, especially in Chinatown and Kensington Market. What’s happening there?
We’re talking about a very old neighbourhood. With food safety, the environmental conditions are very important. You have some buildings that are over 100 years old, so you might have plumbing problems, rodent problems and sewage problems. The food premises are also clustered into a very small area. It’s the responsibility of the operator to create an environment that is not a health hazard, but it’s easier to maintain a restaurant in Yorkdale than to maintain the same business at Spadina and Dundas.
Food preparation techniques vary widely in a multi-cultural city like Toronto. How do you make sure that cultural traditions are respected but that food is still prepared safely?
For any kind of cultural food, the basic assessment is pretty much the same: You cook the food well and you store it properly. The food may look different, but it’s still protein, it’s still beef, and you still have to handle it this way, this way and this way.
To give you some examples: Sometimes Chinese restaurants are cook-your-own, just like a Korean barbecue—suddenly, the customer becomes the food handler. So we try to educate the public; sometimes, you’ll see signage inside the restaurant telling people how to avoid cross-contamination. We’ll educate the operators to make sure they properly clean and sanitize all the utensils, avoid cross-contamination, stuff like that.
Middle Eastern restaurants, with shawarma, will have 20 or 30 pounds of meat on a spit. Again, the food-safety rules are still the same. They have to know the cooking temperature. Almost all of those restaurants have now implemented a reheating step: Instead of just slicing and serving, they also heat up the slice again on a grill or pan. Customers like the meat hot, and it’s also a safety measure, to double-cook the food before it’s served.
Do you ever get owners trying to quickly clean up when they see you coming?
It’s too late! [laughs] Most people try to do it. They can do the minor things, like wiping down a table, but you can’t drop a refrigerator’s temperature by 6˚C in two minutes.
How far do owners go to try to avoid receiving a conditional pass or a closure notice?
Some people will become very aggressive and try to intimidate an inspector. For the past few years, we have laid an average of about three to four charges every year against operators for obstructing a health inspector’s work. Lots of times, people will just argue or debate, but that’s not going to change the inspector’s rating.
If I stand in front of my fridge and say, “You’re not getting in here!” that’s obstruction, then?
That’s right. One individual locked the door and wouldn’t let the inspector out until the inspector issued a green pass. We very often engage Toronto Police when it gets into that kind of obstruction—when the inspector is physically detained or when things could potentially escalate into physical violence. Inspectors are trained for stuff like that, but it doesn’t happen often.
Has anyone tried to bribe the inspectors?
People will try. We have a very strict policy about not accepting gifts or taking anything from an operator.
I’m almost afraid to ask, but what’s the worst condition you’ve ever seen a food premises in?
It’s hard to describe—sometimes you just don’t believe your eyes when you walk in and the operator doesn’t seem to know about the conditions there. He works in a restaurant for 10 or 15 hours a day and he doesn’t see the rodents running around? Sometimes, when you open the refrigerator, you see raw meat hanging on the top tray and ready-to-eat food like potato salad right below. Or there could be a dead rodent under the kitchen table.
What should I be looking for, as a customer? What are some red flags?
Don’t judge the food by the restaurant’s fancy decorations. As a customer, the best thing to do is read up on the premises’ DineSafe rating. [You can find a restaurant’s recent inspection history on DineSafe—the public records go back two years, unless the ownership has changed. The Grid’s map uses data that goes all the way back to 2001.] When you’re at the restaurant, I would probably take a look at the washroom, which can be a good indication of how carefully the operator is looking after the whole restaurant; see whether there’s enough liquid soap and paper towels or a hand-dryer. Or just take a look at the waiters and waitresses. I usually take a look at their fingernails. This person is going to bring me food, and if their fingernails are all dirty, stuff like that might reflect the whole attitude of the operator of the restaurant.
If you order meatloaf or chicken or fish, and it comes out luke-warm, you have to ask yourself: How long has it been sitting at room temperature? The other thing to look for is anything that could be undercooked. The worst thing is when you cut into a piece of chicken and see pink or blood.
And anyone can report a restaurant to Toronto Public Health if they think something is off. Do people ever send pictures, too?
Oh, yeah, once in a while, especially now—almost everyone has a cellphone with a camera. One customer sent a picture with a cockroach in their bowl. We have a policy that we respond to complaints within 24 hours. We investigate an average of 2,000 complaints from the public every year—every complaint is investigated.
But it’s still safe for me to go out for dinner tonight, right?
Oh, yeah, it’s still safe! I do eat out myself—I’m a regular customer. It is a small percentage of poor operators who create the majority of the work for us.
RISKY BUSINESSES
Toronto Public Health uses a risk-assessment system to figure out how frequently to inspect any given establishment, whether it’s a hot dog cart or a hotel kitchen. Here’s how it works:
HIGH-RISK PREMISES (Inspected three times a year or more): The more complicated the food preparation, the higher the food-safety risk. “Think of a restaurant with multiple items on the menu, with raw food and ready-to-eat food,” says Chan. “Think of a hospital kitchen, or a long-term-care-home kitchen. If these operators are not careful, it increases the risk of food poisoning.”
MEDIUM-RISK PREMISES (Inspected twice a year or more): “Lots of people think McDonald’s would be high-risk, but it’s medium-risk,” says Chan. “Everything is generic: You have frozen patties, and there’s one way to cook them and one way to serve them.” Other medium-risk establishments: most pizza places, bakeries, sub shops and cafés.
LOW-RISK PREMISES (Inspected once a year or more): “When you look at a 7-Eleven, where all they have is a few hot dogs on a rotisserie, or they sell chips, pre-packaged sandwiches, stuff like that, they’ll be low-risk.” Ditto for Starbucks and most convenience stores.
