A Mission restaurant received a closure notice from Alberta Health Services for several issues, but the owners say they were solved in hours and opened up the next day, and are now paying the price.
The May 22 notice says Blowers & Grafton on 4 Street SW closed due to several issues that AHS deemed “dangerous to the public health.”
Those include debris from a sewage backup on the basement floors, the dishwasher not sufficiently sanitizing dishes, and garlic butter being stored at room temperature.
Several other infractions include the dishwashing machine and issues with the sanitizer, a lack of a two-compartment sink, and storage of utensils. It also says the basement storage room was disorganized and cluttered and a staff member didn’t know how to manually wash dishes.
Tam Aminzadeh, who owns the Halifax street food restaurant with his brother Samim, says the issues were handled right away, and they got the OK to open the following morning. He also says they were going to close once they learned about the sewage issue voluntarily.
A verbal rescinding order can happen after a restaurant has received a closure notice, and there is a lag between lifting from the website and the reopening of a restaurant, according to AHS.
However, the AHS notice was shared online on Saturday, which led to hundreds of reactions on Reddit and Facebook, with many comments saying they would never eat there again.
Aminzadeh is now trying to set the record straight. He says the main issue that led to the closure, which is the sewage backup, was an external source caused by construction in the area.
Aminzadeh provided a photo showing construction work following sewer backup in the area, and CityNews confirmed the construction in the area.
Sewer line work outside Blowers & Grafton in Mission, Calgary on Sunday, May 26, 2024. (Courtesy Samin Aminzadeh)
Sewer line work outside Blowers & Grafton in Mission, Calgary on Sunday, May 26, 2024. (Courtesy Samin Aminzadeh)
“I agree with AHS and I will go to bat for them all day long. Because if that happens, a business should close down voluntarily. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t know about (the sewage),” he said.
“Everything else that comes from that. We take (this) extremely seriously, every single one. But those were all rectified on the spot. Every single one of them … we had never seen this report until they got posted yesterday on Facebook.”
Several businesses have been closed by AHS lately, including Yemeni Village in the city’s downtown area, and five Calgary businesses were closed by AHS last month for selling uninspected meat.
Alberta RCMP later said eight businesses in Calgary were being investigated for their involvement in the slaughter and sale of uninspected meat, though it didn’t confirm if the establishments involved were those ordered to close by AHS.
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Aminzadeh says a tech was there working on the dishwasher and was there while the inspector was on site and finished before the inspection was complete. The dishwasher wasn’t being used during that time.
“We agree with all of this. We want to, we know we’re allies here. We want to be industry leaders,” he said. “But communicate.”
“That notice is out with zero context to it whatsoever. It doesn’t say that we were reopened. It doesn’t say that all of those things were fixed. Right, it just basically says these guys were closed because of this, this, this, this, this, and this.”
Aminzadeh says the restaurant is working to repair the trust of the Mission community and will make adjustments to their restaurant as being caretakers to the community is a priority.
“The silver lining out of this is … we’re going do everything humanly possible to ensure that food safety is is our number one, number two, number three, number four, number five, number six all the way to number 10, priority, and always has been. But it’s just redoubling our efforts because I don’t want how I feel and how I’ve been feeling over the last five days to show up. Just not good.”
There are three Blowers & Grafton locations in Calgary. A Blowers & Grafton in Medicine Hat was one of seven businesses that were vandalized in early May.
CityNews has reached out to AHS about the notice of closure, and The City of Calgary about the sewage in the area and will update the story with comments.