So, YORK is “incredibly lucky” not to have suffered an outbreak of food poisoning due to a city-centre restaurant’s poor kitchen hygiene, a court has heard (The Press, February 7).

With no thanks given to City of York Council food hygiene inspectors, who first warned the restaurant in 2008 and 2009. In 2011, he was given a zero rating for his failings.

There isn’t yet a law that forces these zero ratings to be displayed on the front doors of these places. If there was, then they would be closed down quickly as the public would not venture inside.

The only protection the public has is the inspections themselves, but only if preventative action is taken from their findings. Without that, the inspections are a waste of time and money.

R Lund, Turnstone Drive, Bury St Edmunds.
 

• IN A sensible world, alongside the restaurant manager in the dock should have been the food safety officers who for five years allowed hygiene practices to continue that threatened a food poisoning outbreak.

For five years, boxes would be ticked, reports written, wrists slapped, yet was any real action taken? After the restaurant’s first refusal to comply with hygiene regulations it should have been summarily closed down.

When are these council officials, who are entrusted with public safety, going to show some teeth?

Geoff Robb, Hunters Close, Dunnington.