HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
(3) MR. H. CHEONG-LEEN asked the following question:
Can the Chairman of the Food and Food Premises Select Committee advise whether the Urban Services Department is doing everything possible to improve the conditions of restaurants and cooked food stalls to provide wholesome food to the public? How many restaurants and cooked food stalls are there in the urban areas and how often are they inspected? Are steps being taken to tighten up and continuously improve the present inspection services?
MR. KENNETH T. C. LO, CHAIRMAN OF THE FOOD AND FOOD PREMISES SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows:-
On 31st December, 1968, in the urban area there were 1,991 licensed general restaurants, 471 licensed light refreshment restaurants, and 2 licensed marine restaurants making a total of 2,464 licensed restaurants. There were also, on that date, 1,284 licensed cooked food stalls.
All restaurants and cooked food stalls are subject to several types of inspection to ensure that the Food Business By-laws and the licensing conditions are being observed. General and marine restaurants, and cooked food stalls selling full meals, are inspected by the department's health inspectors once each week. Light refreshment restaurants and cooked food stalls selling light refreshments, are inspected fortnightly. These inspections are carefully arranged so that they are not made on any particular day at a regular time. Additionally, each of the 102 district health inspectors visits all the restaurants in his own area once a month during the evening to check on hygiene standards during the busy period. These inspections occupy, on average, some four evenings each month. Similar night checks are made by senior health inspectors on restaurants outside their own areas, as a cross-check.
In addition to these regular routine checks, the Assistant Director (Hygiene), Senior Health Officers, Health Officers and other senior staff of the department make regular random checks of two kinds. One is a formal inspection when the licensee is given due notice of a special inspection, and the other is a surprise check. The latter checks are mainly to see that District Inspectors are doing their jobs properly.
Figures showing the total number of visits to licensed restaurants and cooked food stalls, and the number of summonses taken out for breaches of the law, are included in the quarterly statistical return, the latest copy of which was tabled today.
Any restaurants which are found to be consistently below standard, despite appropriate action taken by the district health inspectors, are normally referred to one of the two special squads of hygiene inspectors. One squad is in Kowloon and one on the Island. The job of these special squads is to visit licensed premises which have been reported to be unsatisfactory, and to bring them up to an acceptable standard of hygiene. They do this by constant visits, advising and exhorting the licensee on the improvements it is necessary for him to make. If he does not prove co-operative, then they recommend prosecution and, if necessary, suspension or cancellation of his licence. I am pleased to say, however, that by advising and helping licensees, these squads have achieved considerable success in our aim of maintaining and improving the standard of hygiene in restaurants.
The various hygiene inspections to which I have referred are reviewed regularly by senior staff to see if they can be improved. As far as we know, restaurants in Hong Kong receive more frequent inspections from Government health inspectors than any other restaurants in the world. We do not have the staff to inspect more frequently, and we do not consider that more frequent inspections would improve the standard of hygiene.
What is needed now is more health education, so that owners of restaurants and cooked food stalls, their employees, and the public who patronize them, recognize the need for hygiene at all stages of the preparation, cooking, serving and eating of food. Publicity campaigns on these lines are launched from time to time.
I would like to conclude by seeking the co-operation of Members, and the public generally, in our endeavour to improve hygiene standards. If they will telephone nine, double five, double five and report immediately any restaurant or cooked food stall where the premises, the service, or the food appears to be unhygienic, and give us details, their complaint will be treated confidentially, their name will be withheld, and the premises will be inspected immediately by a senior officer. I would like to stress that, in these cases, we can and do act quickly and effectively, if we receive a complaint about something that has just occurred. Delay in making a complaint reduces the effectiveness of the action we can take.
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