The Porter and Sorter, next to East Croydon Station, has been fined £180,000 plus costs for failing to maintain adequate food hygiene standards.
Sorted: the East Croydon Station pub, popular with football fans on match days
The pub, which is popular with Crystal Palace fans seeking a pre-match pint and burger, was visited by council health inspectors in February and was immediately closed down for four days.
The fine was handed down this week by District Judge Susan Green to pub owners, brewers Marston’s, after Croydon Council brought the prosecution for having a dirty kitchen, mouse droppings and poor hygiene practices.
Marston’s were fined £180,000, plus ordered to pay £5,854.88 in costs, after it admitted multiple hygiene failings at the Porter and Sorter, which describes itself as a “pub and restaurant”.
The fine is among the biggest ever issued to a Croydon food outlet for hygiene shortcomings.
The Porter and Sorter just happens to sit on the opposite side of East Croydon Station from Boozepark, the food and drink outlet run by a private business which was established with a £3million loan from Croydon Council, who have also handed the business nearly £500,000 in publicly funded grants since it opened in 2016.
The Porter and Sorter case followed a council inspection of the pub on Billinton Hill in February, where they found a scene worthy of a Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares...
- Mouse droppings in the kitchen, including in a roasting tin, among utensils, on a serving plate, on tea towels and next to a washing-up sink
- All fridges, walk-in chillers and a freezer were dirty
- Grease build-up on a ventilation fan and on pipework.
Council inspectors also found missing and broken wall tiles, trapped dirt under an area of plastic skirting that had come loose, and a broken glass behind the prosecco fridge in the main bar.
The council inspectors found mouse droppings in the pub kitchen
The owners immediately closed the kitchen at the council’s request, and the council advised the pub of the action needed to rectify the poor standards found. After a deep-clean, the kitchen reopened less than a week later.
According to a statement issued by the council this morning, “The national Food Safety and Hygiene Regulations require all businesses serving food to have adequate food safety management systems, and effective practices and procedures to control vermin. This includes properly cleaning anything that comes into contact with food, as well as maintaining permanent food hygiene procedures.
“In this case, procedures set by Marston’s had failed to be implemented correctly.”
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