(Picture Courtesy of Getty Images)
We recently broke the story that Nguyen voted against proposed restaurant grading systems without telling anyone that her husband and her chief of staff own a restaurant that has received major County health violations. It turns out that Assemblyman Van Tran was covering up for unsanitary food conditions at Vietnamese food establishments in Orange County long before Supervisor Janet Nguyen.
Tran wrote Assembly Bill 2214, which required “the California Department of Health Services to conduct a study to determine methods that allow certain Asian delicacies to meet existing food safety standards relating to retail sale at traditional Asian ceremonies and cultural events,” according to a newsletter published by Tran.
In truth, this bill was all about covering up for Vietnamese food establishments that to meet existing food safety standard – mostly because they allow their food to fester at the wrong temperatures, making “them a breeding ground for dangerous bacteria,” according to NPR.
So what can happen when these bacteria grow in Vietnamese food? An online news site reported that “Four hundred seventy children were hospitalized due to the food poisoning after eating spoiled cakes,” this month, in Ho Chi Minh City.
The same site reported that “a total of 5,000 cases of food poisoning were reported by Vietnam’s Food Hygiene and Safety Agency in the first six months of 2008, including 43 deaths, 15 more than in the same period last year.”
Another news site reported this year that “of the 414 food shops and restaurants inspected in a city survey this month, 232 were found to be in violation of food safety regulations.”
The same site reported that “Many of the violators had been using food from unknown sources and were cooking in unsanitary conditions. Salespeople often did not use gloves or masks, the city said.”
And another site reported that “The Ministry of Trade and Industry has reported that only 52.6 per cent of the collective kitchens in industrial zones examined recently met food safety and hygiene standards.”
An Australian news site reported that “in the last three years there had been two food poisoning incidents in Australia, affecting more than 400 people, which were linked to contaminated bakery products. “In March last year more than 300 people allegedly suffered symptoms of food poisoning after eating pork or chicken rolls from a Sydney bakery.”
Clearly unsanitary conditions at food establishments are common in Vietnam – and those same practices are now here in the U.S. But Assemblyman Van Tran and Supervisor Janet Nguyen are protecting these establishments instead of insisting that they obey our food safety laws. That is wrong – and their own people are paying the price. It is a matter of time before a major food poisoning episode happens in California…and then Tran and Nguyen will have to answer for their political decisions.
The County of Orange has reported the closures of several Vietnamese supermarkets in the past 60 days, including A Dong Supermarket in Westminster and Nguoi Viet Supermarket in Garden Grove. Each has had literally dozens of violations, many of them completely disgusting. Be sure to check out Santa Ana’s Ngoc Bich Restaurant’s violations too.
By the way, the study Tran commissioned is nowhere to be found. I spent an hour trying to find it online. It does not appear to exist. What happened to it, I don’t know…but there IS a solution to the moon cake problem. People have been using radiation to make food safe in Europe for years.
So then what you are saying is that Janet is no better than Van Tran and is actually following in his footsteps.
I would like to hear from all those Jannies out there who told that Janet was the anti-Van and that she would save us from his evil ways.
Doesn’t look like that is working out so well.
“Doesn’t look like that is working out so well.”
You’re not doing such a wiz-bang job on Planning Commission either. So watch your mouth.
“You’re not doing such a wiz-bang job on Planning Commission either.”
Dean,
I’d love for you to cite some examples to back up this little nugget.
Woah Sean, push a button there?
Love the “using radiation” link above at the end of Art’s post. If there were radiation units that were somewhat inexpensive perhaps they could be implemented in the local Pho and Bahn eateries. Although if cultural differences are preventing something as basic as safe food handling you kind of hate to give them something that could poison a whole neighborhood with radiation if it were operating improperly and they were too greedy, evil or uninformed to call the authorities.
The key issue here is our need to make our food supply safe in this country – because it no longer is. I am very cautious about the restaurants I eat at and look at the health department list often but when I find that our elected officials are conspiring against the safety of the general public … well, its time to remove them from office.
This is worse than lying in office. We cannot allow politicians that act against our safety to continue. Brand them traitors and get them to heck out of office.
Thank you OJB for blowing the whistle again!