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FOOD AND DRUGS
Food Hygiene (General) Regulations 1960
Food premises in the borough are subject to frequent inspection by the
public health inspectors to ensure that the provisions of the Food Hygiene
Regulations are being observed and a public health inspector visits the borough's
Sunday markets each week. There are 3,614 food premises including stalls in
the area. Notices of requirements served numbered 366 and 134 summonses
involving 22 premises/stal1s were heard during the year.
The Food Hygiene (General) Regulations 1970 made on 3rd August 1970,
consolidate and amend the Regulations of 1960 and 1962. The principal changes
which come into operation on 1st March 1971, are -
(1) raw food which has to be milled or refined to make it fit for human
consumption is no longer outside the scope of the Regulations.
(2) before food is offered for sale it must be separated from any food
which is unfit for human consumption.
(3) animal food must not be kept in a food room unless it is in a closed
container that eliminates the risk of contamination.
(4) any person handling open food must wear clean and washable overclothing,
subject to certain exceptions.
Food Hygiene (Markets, Stalls and Delivery Vehicles)
Regulations 1966
Stalls were regularly inspected during the week and at week ends. The
issue of casual street trading licences to food traders did not take into
consideration these Regulations. In some cases traders did not even have a stall
and if they did, were not in a position to provide the facilities required by
the Regulations
To resolve this unsatisfactory state of affairs the Council decided that
no casual licences would be issued to food traders selling open food. This not
only solved the problem of the casual trader but al so seemed to give encouragement
to the permanent traders,
"Pirate" ice cream and hot dog vendors in the Tower Hill area continued to
trade illegally. With the assistance of the Metropolitan Police and the Officers
of the Public Control Department, some convictions for breaches of the regulations
and illegal trading were obtained and fairly heavy penalties imposed by the
Magistrates One trader was fined £90 with £10.10s costs under the Regulations,
fined £30 for illegal trading in respect of his ice cream van and, in addition,
fined £10 for failing to give information.
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