Listeria outbreak closes market

‘Unsanitary conditions’ shut Hollywood Penn Dutch doors indefinitely

Penn Dutch Meat and Seafood Market in Hollywood is closed indefinitely after state inspectors found potentially “unsanitary conditions,” a leaky roof and the same food pathogen that caused problems at the store earlier this year.

Samples collected in the past month found widespread evidence of potentially harmful listeria bacteria around the store, leading inspectors to order the deli counter shut on Aug. 27. A Sept. 4 followup inspection led the store at 3950 N. 28th Terrace to voluntarily shut.

“We are temporarily closed in this location due to damages to the building,” a voice recording on the Hollywood store’s phone line said Monday. “We don’t currently have an estimated reopening date.”

“It’s in their court now to make the necessary fixes,” Matt Colson, chief of food inspections for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said in a phone interview Monday. “It can be a difficult organism to erad

icate.”

A similar listeria episode in February-March forced Penn Dutch to halt some food-processing operations and toss 3,400 pounds of meat and poultry that also had been distributed to its Margate location. This time the only tainted food that Penn Dutch tossed was deli ham off the bone, Colson said.

An email sent to Penn Dutch customers Sept. 5 said the Hollywood store was closed “due to repairs.” The Margate location, at 3201 N. State Road 7, remains open.

State inspectors will return to the Hollywood store when repairs are made and the store is properly “cleaned and sanitized,” Colson said. Inspectors will collect environmental samples and all must come back negative for listeria monocytogenes bacteria before the store is allowed to reopen, Colson said. That process takes around a week. According to a 22-page inspection/citation issued Sept. 4, Penn Dutch faces fines and license suspension or revocation if it doesn’t pass re-inspection.

No mention of the Hollywood store’s closure — or recurrence of listeria at the market — was made on the Penn Dutch website or Facebook page as of Monday afternoon. Customers who approached the store on Sunday and Monday found doors shuttered and blocked by shopping carts. There was no notice explaining the closure, just a sheet asking customers to visit the Margate location.

Penn Dutch officials couldn’t be reached for comment despite voice mails left on the cell phones of three executives. State inspectors returned to the store in August, six months after the first episode, and samples collected confirmed the recurrence of listeria bacteria. Besides the tainted ham, around 30 of 170 environmental samples tested showed evidence of the bacteria, Colson said.

Listeria bacteria can sprout in water from leaks and condensation. Colson said inspectors noticed a roof leak during the Aug. 27 visit and they notified Hollywood code enforcement officials. The Hollywood Penn Dutch store, visible from I-95 between Sheridan Street and Stirling Road, dates to the 1970s.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says listeria bacteria can cause listeriosis, which it describes as a serious infection “most likely to sicken pregnant women and their newborns, adults aged 65 or older, and people with weakened immune systems.” About 1,600 people get listeriosis each year, and about 260 die, the CDC says.

Earlier this year, when the discovery of listeria bacteria at the Hollywood store led to the destruction of potentially tainted food that had been distributed to both stores, Penn Dutch president Greg Salsburg said, “We’ve been open for 44 years. This has obviously never happened before. We’re going to make it so it never happens in the future.”

In March, Dr. Matthew Curran, the director of food safety for the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, told the Sun Sentinel, “A thorough deep cleaning of the facility is often warranted to remove the pathogen … If it’s not removed fully, it will grow again and will spread.”