Report: Violations Lead to Closure of Captain's Pizza

A recent story from WTSP 10 News states that longtime Main Street eatery Captain's Pizza closed last week after a state agency found a staggering 72 critical health code violations over four days of inspections last month.

According to the article, which was published on the news station's website last Thursday:

• 72 critical violations were discovered, including slime in the ice machine, roaches in the dining room and kitchen and cigarette ashes on the food prep table
• the restaurant has been closed following the most recent inspection 
• the owner might have suffered an injury while attempting to repair some of the problems
• a maintenance man said the pizzeria might remain closed permanently

Safety Harbor Patch obtained four reports filed by the Florida Deptartment of Business & Professional Regulation that outline a litany of violations, both critical and non-critical in nature, for the restaurant, which has been part of the downtown dining scene for over 30 years. 

Non-critical violations include utensils in poor condition and employees with no hair restraints and dirty hands, while critical violations include lack of thermometers in holding units, food with mold-like growth on it and and the accumulation of dead animals, insects and rodent droppings underneath a kitchen cabinet.

In total there were 120 violations listed in the reports, 72 critical and 48 non-critical.

A phone call to the restaurant was not answered on Sunday.

Safety Harbor Patch will be following this story closely. If you would like to share any thoughts on the subject, feel free to do so in the comments below.