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CMC gets ‘aggressive’ with thosai kades
Colombo vegetarian cafe owners have a month to clean up their act after being shamed at a public meeting by photographs of their filthy establishments.
Four in five of these outlets, commonly known as thosai kades, have very poor hygienic conditions, the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) said. Its inspectors have been visiting the outlets over the past month, and last week the Sunday Times accompanied them on inspections of restaurants down Malwatta Mawatha, Pettah, that are visited by hundreds of people who visit Colombo daily through the Fort Railway station.
CMC inspectors checking food outlets
The mudalali of one of the restaurants led us past hungry customers and waiters in white uniforms into a poorly-lit kitchen. Washed sarongs and t-shirts hung on a clothesline fixed just above the kitchen door as sweaty workers wearing t-shirts smeared with food stains greeted us.
An enormous firewood hearth in the middle of the room emitted so much heat that it was almost impossible for an onlooker to linger a mere five minutes, yet the workers went about their work completely unaffected by the heat.
The CMC’s Public Health Department Chief Food Inspector M.D. Lal Kumara carefully inspected unwashed dishes left by the side of a grinder. These would be used later on for cooking, one of the workers told us.
“Stretch out your hands,” Mr. Lal Kumara ordered the cook. He obliged, displaying hands smeared with charcoal. Mr Lal Kumara checked for any wounds or rashes.
We moved on to inspect the washroom, just a few feet away from the kitchen, but were forced to back off because of the unbearable odour from inside. An incomplete stairway by the side of the washroom door led up to the workers’ quarters.
CMC called a meeting of all Colombo vegetarian restaurant owners on Thursday. Pix by Athula Devapriya
The mudalali tells us that the restaurant has been functioning for the past 60 years under the same conditions.
The horrible sights continued through the next few restaurants along Malwatta Road. About 20 customers sit down to their lunch at each of these eateries every day.
In the 21st century, many of the restaurants operating in Sri Lanka’s capital city were using firewood stoves to prepare their food.
On Thursday last week the CMC called a meeting of all Colombo vegetarian restaurant owners at the New Town Hall Colombo. Owners and managers from 50 such restaurants turned up.
Health officials had shown the owners photographs taken of their kitchens and had asked them to take immediate action to address the unhygienic conditions.
“There are approximately 60 vegetarian restaurants located in Colombo and nearly 80 per cent of them have very poor hygienic conditions,” Colombo District 2A Medical Officer of Health Dr. Subash Mendis said.
“We advised these owners to upgrade their kitchens. We gave them a period of one month to make the necessary changes.
“Each of these restaurants that upgrade to our standards will be rated as “Good” by the municipality. We will also paste a plaque on each of these vegetarian hotels. Legal action will be taken against those hotels that don’t meet up to our standards.
“This is an aggressive approach taken by the Municipal Health Department and by January we hope to have at least 30-40 restaurants functioning according to our standards. We hope to recommend these places to tourists,” he said.
“It is public indifference to hygienic conditions that ensures the growth of these restaurants around the country,” CMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ruwan Wijayamuni told the Sunday Times. If people stopped going to such places the shops would die a natural death.
“We are trying to regulate these hotels and starting off with the vegetarian hotels seemed appropriate because a majority of people across the country eat from these restaurants,” he said.
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