Badea Abu Al-Naja Saudi Gazette MAKKAH — The branch municipality of Makkah's Al-Sharie district has closed down a large warehouse storing bottled water over a number of violations, including improper storage of goods. Many bottles of water were destroyed because they had long expired. Municipality Chairman Fahd Bin Marzouq Al-Bushra said the supervisors were intensifying their inspection tours to protect local residents and visitors to the holy city. He said the municipality was determined to ensure all food and drink for sale were suitable for human consumption. Muteb Al-Hakami, director of the municipality's department of services, said the inspection teams also confiscated more than 700 cartons of juices and soft drinks because they were improperly loaded into a truck that was extremely hot inside. "There was no cooling system inside the truck, while the bottles and cans of soft drinks were exposed to direct sunlight," he said. Al-Hakami said the entire load was confiscated and destroyed. Meanwhile, food inspectors shut down a restaurant in the Al-Muaisem area of Makkah after receiving reports of health violations being committed there. Head of Al-Sharaie municipality branch, Fahd Al-Bishri, said an inspection team visited the premises and found workers cooking food in a dirty environment. The team discovered meat from unknown sources and Ramadan meals that had been prepared in unhealthy conditions and were ready for distribution. Al-Bishri said local authorities would not hesitate to crack down on violating restaurants. He added the municipality confiscated all food used in the restaurant and destroyed it. The confiscated goods included 50 kilograms of rotten meat, 10 kilograms of spices and 30 kilograms of rice. The team also found goats in the back of the restaurant that were being kept for slaughtering. In a related incident, Al-Misfalah branch municipality branch closed down a plant preparing subiya (a traditional drink made of barley and very popular in Ramadan). The head of the food and public health at the municipality said 1,800 litters of the drink were confiscated due to unhygienic preparation and bad storage.
