What kinds of enforcement actions can Public Health take?
Public Health – Seattle & King County has the authority to: • suspend an establishment’s operating permit until the problem is fixed • revoke an establishment’s permit if it has had its permit suspended three times in a 12 month period; • revoke the permit if the owner has assaulted, threatened or repeatedly interfered with the Public Health employee in the performance of his/her duty • use civil penalties. Civil penalties were designed for situations where the penalty is assessed against the owner of the real property. In most cases, this means that the penalty would be assessed against the landlord, not the food establishment operator.
