Three Centretown shawarma restaurants have violated the health code a combined 71 times since January 1, 2016, an analysis of data compiled by the City of Ottawa has revealed.
The three restaurants, Prince Gourmet Shawarma and Falafel, Shawarma Deluxe and Shawarma’s King Restaurant have a variety of violations of the provincial Health Protection and Promotion Act. The Act governs how the food is stored and prepared and regulates the cleanliness of facilities.
Shawarma Deluxe, located at 347 Dalhousie Street in the Byward Market and Prince Gourmet Shawarma and Falafel, located at 55 Byward Market, have both been inspected three times in 2017. According to an emailed statement from Ottawa Public Health “[f]ood premises are inspected once, twice or three times each year, depending on the risk classification of High, Moderate or Low.”
The City of Ottawa website states that a minimum of three inspections per year makes a restaurant a high-risk food establishment. Shawarma’s King Restaurant, at 395 Bank Street, has been inspected twice in 2017, making it a medium-risk food establishment.
When asked about health code violations at Shawarma Deluxe, co-owner Joseph –who only gave his last name as “Shawarma Deluxe”— said “so far we have [had] no complaint[s]” from the health inspectors. When asked to address the 22 health code violations that Shawarma Deluxe has accumulated since January 1, 2016, Joseph blamed the spite of some customers. “When you work in the public for a long time, you can’t please everybody,” he said.
He also said some complaints leveled against Shawarma Deluxe stem from drunk people coming into the restaurant and vomiting in the bathrooms. Joseph did not clarify how these complaints were related to the health code violations that regulate the food preparation area cleanliness.
At Prince Gourmet Shawarma and Falafel, Ahmed Al-Bawaadh, an employee and brother of the owner, claimed not to be aware of any violations. When the 20 health code violations were mentioned another employee ended the interview saying that they were busy during the lunch rush. At the time, a few minutes before noon, the Prince Gourmet Shawarma was largely empty as there were four other people in the restaurant. All had already ordered and been served their food.
Fadel El-Hussein, a co-owner of Shawarma’s King Restaurant, the sign and website for which reads Shawarma King Restaurant or Shawarma Kin respectively, said that the 29 health code violations that it has accumulated are largely the fault of the previous owner.
“A lot of that was from the old management. We inherited old equipment, the whole building was old to begin with, so we did a lot of renovation,” he said. El-Hussein said that he and his business partner purchased Shawarma’s King two years ago and that the entire front food preparation area was renovated in the past month and a half. The last inspection of Shawarma’s King Restaurant took place approximately two months ago.
Ottawa Public Health refused to comment on their inspection process or on the effects or consequences of what repeated violations of the same health code violations entails. An emailed statement said that “[t]here are different levels of deficiencies, from non-critical to a health hazard. Non-critical deficiencies (ex. lack of environmental cleaning) can be corrected at the time of the inspection or shortly after, where a re-inspection would be required.” The statement went on to say that an inspector is able to issue a closure order where there is an immediate risk to the safety of the public’s health.