Eatery was cited for labels

A Utah restaurant where a woman unknowingly drank iced tea mixed with chemicals and nearly died was cited seven months earlier for improper food labeling.

County officials issued seven violations to Dickey’s Barbecue in South Jordan after a January inspection, Salt Lake County Health Department records show. The year before, the restaurant had six violations.

Dickey’s Barbecue has had no violations for improper chemical labeling since opening in 2012, records show.

Authorities say a worker at the establishment unintentionally put a chemical cleaning compound in a sugar bag last month.

The substance ended up in a woman’s glass of iced tea Aug. 10 after an employee mixed it into a beverage dispenser.

In January, the restaurant was cited for two critical violations: employee beverages being too close to food prep areas and a dirty can opener, records show. Mislabeling of food is considered noncritical and is a common violation, health agency spokesman Nicholas Rupp said.

Health officials visited the restaurant Aug. 11, the day after Jan Harding unknowingly drank the tea, and found a bag of sugar was not labeled.

Rupp said the restaurant threw out all the sugar in the establishment after the incident but neglected to label one of the new containers with sugar. Harding remains hospitalized but was upgraded from critical to serious condition this week.