A Chinese restaurant owner has been fined after inspectors found multiple disgusting food safety breaches at CuPanda Kitchen in Melbourne, including rat faeces in contact with Peking duck.
Dianping Zheng, 52, who lives in Balwyn North, pleaded guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday where he and his company Nick & Alex Pty Ltd were fined $38,000 and ordered to pay Melbourne City Council court costs of $11,328.
Magistrate Belinda Franjic said Zheng’s conduct needed to be condemned in the “strongest possible terms” in order to deter other restauranteurs from similarly ignoring Australian food safety standards, the Herald Sun reported.
She said that photos taken by food safety inspectors in September 2022 and again the following year were “revolting to look at”.
“They depict premises that were filthy, clearly unhygienic and, even to the most untrained of eyes, clearly fell well short of any food standards and anything that a reasonable person will regard as appropriate conditions for food preparation and storage” she said.
“The way the premises presented would have presented a very real risk to the safety of its customers, some of which would’ve had no opportunity to make any assessment at all of the state of the premises.”
CuPanda, which was located near the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne’s CBD, was first inspected after a complain from a customer, leading to an immediate shutdown order due to multiple unacceptable breaches including rampant rodent activity.
Zheng then reopened but when inspectors returned last year they found many of the same breaches at the filthy restaurant and noted rodent faeces in contact with pork belly and Peking duck, and was ordered closed again.
It then reopened again in October, but Zheng said he has been forced to close permanently in March this year, telling the court he could not afford to pay rent due to lack of student customers and was in debt to creditors and suppliers.
Zheng represented himself in court where he tried to claim that he was suffering financially as he did not run any businesses and was in the middle of a divorce but was accused of having “numerous inconsistencies” in his plea submissions.
When council prosecutors pointed out that he owns a butcher shop in a different area, Zheng admitted owning it but said his wife ran it.
He also blamed Covid for his business woes and said the butcher shop was losing money because customers were now buying their meat from supermarkets.
Header image: Pictures taken by food inspectors showing uncovered sauces, poorly stored food and filthy pots and cleaning areas
