VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, [4], 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 03:28:22 03/27/08 Thu
Author: JMR (Want some chicken?)
Subject: Board of Health shuts down Framingham market

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/homepage/x652205461


Board of Health shuts down Framingham market

By Liz Mineo/Daily News staff
GHS
Posted Mar 27, 2008 @ 12:48 AM


FRAMINGHAM —
The Board of Health shut down a Brazilian grocery market on Waverley Street and pulled its license to sell food after inspectors found it was selling chicken past expiration dates.

Gol Supermarket, 208 Waverley St., was closed March 20 after health inspectors tried unsuccessfully to make the store's owner comply with the law, said Lise Mespelli, the Board of Health's acting director.

"Despite our efforts to bring him into compliance, (the owner) just continued not to comply," said Mespelli. "He was jeopardizing the health of everybody that came into his store to buy food."

Owner John Araujo, who has Gol stores in Shrewsbury, Hyannis and Somerville, didn't return calls.

Mespelli said he can run the store but he is not allowed to sell food. Yesterday, signs in Portuguese and English said the store was closed but didn't give any further details.

Since the store's opening in 2004, health inspectors have received complaints from customers about food being sold beyond its expiration date.

In late January, inspectors found, in the most egregious violation, packages of chicken being sold beyond their expiration dates. Weeks later, inspectors found packages of chicken that didn't carry any expiration dates.

Mespelli said that even the day before the owner came to the Board of Health (March 19) to defend himself, inspectors again found packages of chicken being sold without expiration dates. Inspectors had to remove other food items that had passed their expiration dates, she said.

The Board of Health decided to shut down the store, a rare move, said Mespelli, because of the public health threat and the owner's failure to obey the law.

"The board was quite upset to make this decision," said Mespelli. "We work closely with owners to bring them into compliance. We try to educate them and give them a second chance. But he was putting his own community, mostly, in harm's way. You can easily get sick if you eat food beyond its expiration date, particularly chicken."

Mespelli said Araujo told the board the bad food arrived at his store from his distributor with either no expiration dates or already expired.

On March 3, inspectors closed the store's butcher's area because of its "unsanitary conditions" and being "a public health threat," said Mespelli, but the owner cleaned up the problems and the butchery was reopened. Mespelli said Araujo could have prevented his business's closure if he had followed the earlier recommendations about expiration dates.

"We do everything to support the Brazilian community," she said. "If nothing else, he (the owner) has disappointed the Brazilian community the most."

(Liz Mineo can be reached at

508-626-3825 or lmineo@cnc.com.)

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.