A pub landlord has been fined more than £2,000 after admitting 21 food safety breaches. Vasile Barbu, who runs the Old Pandy Inn in Monmouthshire, has apologised after an inspector found "foul-smelling" raw chicken and "rancid" raw pork on-site.
Barbu was taken to Cwmbran Magistrates' Court by Monmouthshire Council and ordered to pay £2,408.40 over offences involving the pub's "dirty and dishevelled" kitchen. The 48-year-old told WalesOnline he was not at the pub in Pandy when the inspection happened because he was driving goods to Ukraine to support the war-torn country. He said the business was closed at the time and no one got sick from eating its food but he has replaced the chef and insisted the kitchen is now "in a good position".
Last March a food hygiene inspector visited the Hereford Road pub — which has an average TripAdvisor rating of four stars after 286 reviews — and found the premises were "not kept clean". A dirty wash hand basin was not securely fixed to the wall, congealed grease had gathered under the extractor fan on the external kitchen wall, there had been spillages of "dirty cooking oil" in the rear yard, and there were dirty floors.
