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115
The most important changes resulting from these extended
powers would be the opportunities afforded of taking effective and
preventive action in many food trades now practically uncontrolled,
particularly as regards:—
1. The use of unclean and unsuitable storage for food;
2. The manipulation of dirty and damaged food for re-sale;
3. Insufficient attention to premises, machinery and utensils
which are used in the preparation and distribution of
foods;
4. Neglect of personal cleanliness among food workers;
5. Exposure to contamination of food intended for sale for
human consumption either in unsuitable premises, by
unsuitable methods, or by flies and vermin;
6. The uncleanly distribution of food by neglect of commonsense
precautions against fouling.
Registration Powers as regards Unsatisfactory Premises.—The
powers of the sanitary authority to refuse and revoke registration
in certain trades are perhaps the most valuable preventive measures
yet introduced into public health administration. It must be
admitted, of course, that such punitive measures as prosecution
in regard to unsatisfactory premises and seizure of unsound food
are also preventive, since thereby a tremendous amount of unsound
food is taken off the market. However, by refusing to register
unless conditions are quite satisfactory or by revoking registration
when offences are committed, we have really carried out a permanent
measure of reform; in other words, finality is reached,
thereby preventing the commission of all future offences in such
cases, including the possibility of unsound food reaching the market
from such sources to be seized if an Inspector happens to pass by,
but otherwise to be retailed to the consumer. Moreover, the
procedure of taking an occupier of unsuitable premises, or the
occupier of suitable premises who conducts his business in an
unsatisfactory manner, to the Police Court to be punished by fines,
often results in nothing more than grudging unsatisfactory measures
of improvement. Even where really satisfactory conditions can be
enforced, Police Court proceedings, penalty and costs and order for
abatement have far less effect than the knowledge that the sanitary
authority have the power to revoke registration; as regards unsatisfactory
food premises, it is in some cases practically impossible for
the occupier to introduce really satisfactory methods, and, in such
cases, all that can be done by Police Court procedure after endless
preliminary effort is to enforce a measure only of improvement.
Further, it takes far less time and is far less difficult to prepare
sufficient evidence to prevent unsuitable premises being registered