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Sweet and Sour Bambi?

By Pritzker | Ruohonen

Health officials in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., are expected to decide this week whether to permanently shut down a local Chinese restaurant where workers reportedly were butchering a deer in the kitchen.

The China King restaurant in the Town of Hamburg has been closed since the incident  happened late last week.

WKBW-TV reported that the Erie County Health Department received a tip Friday morning that someone was dragging a dead animal into the restaurant. An inspector responded and found a deer being gutted on the premises, a violation of public health law designed to prevent the spread of disease.

Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Anthony Billittier IV told the Buffalo News that it wasn't clear if the deer had been hunted or if it was road kill.

"From our standpoint it doesn't matter,'' he said. "In general, you can't have a dead animal in a food services establishment.''

Although E. coli infections are usually associated with beef cattle, other animals can also carry and spread this pathogen.

Last year in North Carolina, for example, a case of butchering inside a restaurant proved deadly. Health officials there closed Captain’s Galley Restaurant in China Grove after learning a goat had been slaughtered in the kitchen days before several restaurant patrons contracted E. coli infections. One of those sickened died.

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Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on October 27, 2008 (boomark / email).