Almost half of the city’s shawarma outlets face closure after failing to meet new hygiene regulations issued by Dubai Municipality.
The authority sent letters to 572 outlets explaining the recent health safety guidelines after inspection campaigns found that they do not have enough space to properly prepare and store food.
But inspectors said a 25 per cent – 141 outlets – did not take any action “at all” and another 20 per cent – 113 – stopped serving rather than meet the new rules.
The deadline for meeting the new rules was yesterday.
The changes stated that chefs must have enough room to ensure raw meats are not near salads, that all non-cooked food is kept in fridges and that the meat is at no point exposed to dirt or dust.
Sultan Al Tahir, Head of Food Inspection Section at Dubai Municipality said: “Inspectors from the municipality found that shawarma outlets don’t have enough space to prepare or store the food.
“They also did not have a space to put other ingredient, including mayonnaise, garlic sauce, tahina, etc. During our routine inspection campaigns to these shawrma outlets, we detected many violations.”
Al Tahir said: “Medium-sized or small restaurants do not have enough space to separate food ingredients, which causes the occurrence of cross-contamination between meat and vegetables as it requires to be completely separated and allotted a place away from the meat.”
Last year, the municipality sought to crackdown on shisha cafes that exposed passers-by to passive smoking and did not have a licence.