Restaurant fined after hot oil incident

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Article By Jim WIlson Published August 22, 2022
Article Source: Restaurant fined after hot oil incident | Canadian Occupational Safety (thesafetymag.com)

Employer had no qualified first aid attendants or documented first aid procedures

British Columbia’s Sammy J's Morgan Crossing Ltd. has been fined $9,660.57 for an incident that resulted in a worker sustaining serious injuries.

The incident happened in the employer’s Surrey workplace.

The worker had emptied hot oil from a deep fryer into a pot for disposal. As the worker was carrying the pot toward a waste oil receptacle the worker slipped, spilling the hot oil.

Following an investigation, WorkSafeBC determined that the employer did not have adequate documented procedures for handling hot oil and did not ensure that workers wore appropriate footwear in the kitchen.

In addition, the restaurant had no qualified first aid attendants or documented first aid procedures, no joint health and safety committee, and no documented training procedures for new and young workers.

“The employer failed to provide its workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety, a high-risk violation,” according to the B.C. government. “The employer also failed to establish and maintain a joint health and safety committee, and failed to have first aid attendants as required, both repeated violations.”

Numerous other B.C. employers have also previously been fined for workplace safety violations.

M & M Excavating Services Ltd. was fined $50,551.14 after an incident of natural gas release in its worksite. As the company was excavating to remove an existing retaining wall, the firm's excavator struck and damaged a supply gas line. This resulted in the release of natural gas and the evacuation of the area.

FortisBC Inc. was fined $11,647.19 following a series of incidents at its Bonnington Falls workplace. The natural gas and electricity company had workers from a subcontracted firm conducting concrete repair work on a hydroelectric generating plant, working from a suspended scaffold over the generating plant's tailrace. During this process, a generating unit was not shut down and locked out and was maintained in an operational-ready state. And on multiple occasions, the generating unit was started up, creating water surge events that flooded and damaged the scaffold.

Leader Hazmat Ltd. was fined $20,000 after it conducted asbestos abatement at a house in Surrey slated for demolition, and issued a clearance letter indicating all asbestos-containing materials (ACMs) had been contained or removed. When WorkSafeBC inspected the site, however, it observed a waste bin of uncontained debris from drywall, an identified ACM.