Colombo food businesses fined Rs444,000 over labelling, expired stocks and quality failures
Two Chinese restaurants and a Chinese ice-cream business in Colombo have been fined a combined Rs444,000 over 148 food-safety charges, according to accounts of court action following municipal inspections. The Maligakanda Magistrate's Court imposed the fines on Friday, November 13.
The cases followed surprise visits by Public Health Inspectors attached to the Colombo Municipal Council. The restaurant inspections concerned imported products without proper labels and expired food stocks. A separate ice-cream case followed the collection and laboratory examination of samples.
Rs360,000 across the two restaurants
The two restaurants operate inside a shopping mall in Colombo. They were fined a total of Rs360,000 over 120 charges. The amount is the combined fine for the two businesses, not Rs360,000 for each restaurant.
Inspectors found imported food products being sold and used for consumption without the required labelling, together with stocks whose expiry dates had passed. Legal proceedings were then brought against the companies operating the restaurants. The court account describes findings of guilt on the 120 charges before the fines were imposed.
The reported findings concern those establishments and the items examined during the inspections. They do not establish that every imported food product or every Chinese restaurant in Colombo breaches food-safety rules. The businesses' names and the mall's identity were not disclosed in the information released.
Ice-cream samples failed laboratory standards
In the separate case, the ice-cream company admitted guilt on 28 charges, including selling ice cream that did not meet the required quality standards. The court imposed an Rs84,000 fine after the admission. This fine is separate from the Rs360,000 imposed on the restaurants.
Public Health Inspectors collected ice-cream samples and sent them to the Colombo Municipal Council's City Analyst. Laboratory results showed that the samples did not comply with the applicable standards, leading to proceedings against the company. The published account does not name a specific contaminant or give the laboratory measurements, so no particular substance or test result should be inferred.
Three businesses, two sets of proceedings
Together, the restaurant and ice-cream cases account for 148 charges and Rs444,000 in fines. The figures combine 120 restaurant charges with 28 ice-cream charges, and Rs360,000 with Rs84,000. They describe court penalties, not compensation paid to individual customers.
The information available does not identify affected customers, report a confirmed outbreak of illness, or describe a closure order or subsequent reopening. Those outcomes cannot be assumed from the fines alone. The photograph is a commercial-kitchen illustration and does not show any of the businesses involved in the cases.