Russia temporarily shuts four McDolanld’s restaurants
21 Aug 2014
Russia's customer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said yesterday four McDonald's restaurants had been temporarily shut down in Moscow, including the first ever outlet in the country, citing sanitary violations, Xinhua reported.
"During the snap inspections on Aug 18-20, sanitary rules violations have been detected in those fast-food outlets. Administrative cases have been initiated and will be passed to the courts," said the watchdog in a statement.
It added inspections of other outlets pertaining to the chain would continue. The chain currently operates over 430 outlets throughout Russia.
In a statement, the Russian franchise of the company said, "We are studying the essence of the claims to determine the steps necessary to open the restaurants for the customers as soon as possible."
According to state-run news agency RT.com the consumer watchdog agency made its first checks in May in the city of Veliky Novgorod.
The agency said, at the time the Caesar roll and vegetable salad had been found to contain microbe pollution with E. coli bacteria and 10 times the safe level of microbes.
The move against the US fast food company comes against the backdrop of western sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine crisis and the counter-measures by Kremlin banning the import of food from the west.
Rospotrebnadzor today said it was conducting unscheduled checks at McDonald's restaurants in the Sverdlovsk region in the Urals as also in a number of other areas across the country GErman overseas broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.
Itar-Tass news agency cited official Natalya Lukyantseva, local watchdog official as saying that the inspections were meant to verify whether reports about sanitary law breaches were justified.
Among the restaurants shuttered was the US company's first-ever branch in Russia, which opened during the last days of the Soviet Union and which, according to the firm, was its most-frequented in the world.
According to McDonald's head office in Illinois, the company was working to reopen the restaurants as soon as possible.
McDonald's, with over 400 restaurants across Russia, has a 37,000-strong workforce there.
