Eight vendors inside the Micronesia Mall food court were forced to temporarily shut down due to an active roach infestation.

Environmental Public Health Supervisor Leilani Navarro said the sanitary inspections were spurred from a complaint.

“It’s important to understand the reason why we conducted these inspections is because we received a public report of a roach sighting in the food court in one of the establishments. So we did an inspection and we were able to confirm the roach infestation. With our knowledge of this pest, they tend to travel to neighboring facilities so we did an inspection of the rest of the foodcourt,” said Navarro.

Starting last Wednesday, Public Health inspected a total of 24 permitted food facilities inside the food court.

All the eight vendors ceased operations by Sunday after they found evidence of multiple dead and alive roaches.

“However, some of them also did receive a demerit of more than 41 points which usually actually results in closure whether there's a roach infestation or not,” added Navarro.

Most of the restaurants were last inspected a couple of years ago, while new vendors have not been inspected at all prior to this.

The reason?

“It’s not a secret that our division is severely understaffed. So it’s really hard to inspect all of the 3000 plus establishments that we have on a quarterly or annual basis because of the historical challenges of the staff,” added Navarro.

In order to open back up, the vendors will need to provide a daily pest control report, a written cleaning schedule, seal all gaps, sanitize food surfaces and observe no pest activity for three consecutive days.

“If there were other violations that were cited during the site inspection, they will need to let us know how they corrected them. Then we will do a follow up inspection,” Navarro added.

In a statement to KUAM, the Micronesia Mall said in part, “The affected food court tenants are currently taking responsibility for their infractions within their spaces, and their management shall be implementing improved housekeeping and maintenance measures to prevent future incidents.”

They added, “Micronesia Mall takes food safety standards seriously and is working closely with DPHSS and the tenants to address all identified concerns.”

You can read their full statement below.

Micronesia Mall acknowledges the temporary closure of eight food court tenants following a recent inspection by DPHSS. The affected food court tenants are currently taking responsibility for their infractions within their spaces, and their management shall be implementing improved housekeeping and maintenance measures to prevent future incidents. Micronesia Mall takes food safety standards seriously and is working closely with DPHSS and the tenants to address all identified concerns.

Micronesia Mall maintains rigorous health and safety protocols, including comprehensive pest control measures implemented mall-wide, along with daily maintenance through our professional cleaning services vendor and our in-house maintenance team in addition to mandatory pest control services for all tenants.

The majority of our food court establishments remain open and continue to serve our customers while meeting all required health standards.