Members of the Board of Health met with the Select Board to discuss their food permit issue. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
SOUTHWICK – During Monday night’s Select Board meeting, the board met with Board of Health members to discuss their ongoing issue with food establishments in town not paying their annual food permit and fees.
In May, Board of Health Director Tom FitzGerald noted that there were seven food vendors in town that hadn’t paid their required permit fee to operate as a licensed food business in Southwick. The deadline to pay the fee was on May 21. Since then, six establishments have paid the fee.
FitzGerald noted that if a place didn’t pay the fee by May 21, a $150 fine would be issued by the Board of Health.
On June 1, the Board of Health informed the Westfield News that Pasticceria Italia of 610 College Highway hadn’t paid their fee and was issued a certified letter.
The original deadline to pay the permit was on January 1, but it was then extended to January 31. Despite that, FitzGerald decided not to issue fines and sent out letters to those respective establishments to remind them to pay the permit fee.
Meeting with the Select Board on Monday evening, FitzGerald was joined by fellow Board of Health members Jerry Azia and Jean Nilsson. Select Board Chairman Joe Deedy said that he visited Pasticceria Italia on Monday morning and they should be paying their fees rather quickly.
Towards the end of the discussion, the Board of Health wanted to figure out ways to make sure this issue doesn’t happen again for next year.
“We don’t want this to happen again next year,” said Azia.
For next year, FitzGerald said that if a food establishment doesn’t pay their food permit, it’ll also prohibit them from obtaining their liquor license as well. Instead of the Board of Health sending out letters to all food establishments in town on December 1, they will now look to send out the letters before November.
