By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A bakery and its director have been ordered to pay fines and costs of more than $100,000 after being found guilty of 126 breaches of the Food Act.
L&A Bakery Pty Ltd, which is registered as a Noble Park company, was closed down by Greater Dandenong Council in March after repeatedly failing to meet food safety orders.
In sentencing on 15 December, Dandenong magistrate Greg Connellan said it was “one of the most serious examples of non-compliance with the Food Act (ever) before me”.
He described some of the breaches as “egregious” despite the council officers going to “extraordinary lengths” to bring the bakery into compliance.
There was “extensive” evidence against the company and its sole director Phillip Tran, which was collected by officers between June 2021 and March 2022.
In closing the bakery, the council “appeared to come to the conclusion that to bring the premises to a state of complying with the Food Act was never going to be achieved”.
“Even after the service of the closure orders there were many things that had not been attended to.”
The family members were “completely naïve”, with a lack of skill and knowledge in food, Mr Connellan said.
“Mum and Dad were left to do all the work… the parents didn’t have any clear understanding.
“They did take some steps but they weren’t able to embrace the concept.”
The business and Mr Tran were found guilty of 126 of the 152 charges, with all charges dismissed against non-director Ms Thi Thanh Tran.
Mr Connellan criticised the “impossible” indictment for having “too many charges” and a lack of “particularization” of the charges.
Mr Tran and the bakery faced maximum fines of more than $24.6 million – wholly payable to the council.
Prosecutor Jerome Keating pressed for a significant fine as a deterrent, though not necessarily the full multi-million-dollar maximum.
The council also submitted for the defendants to pay costs of more than $37,600.
Mr Keating noted that Greater Dandenong environmental health officers inspected the bakery 13 times and found continual failure to meet “minimum standards” like unsafe food and issues with pests.
“It screams to me that ‘I don’t need to comply with that’.”
Despite regular emails and messages from the council, Mr Tran failed to appear at five court hearings into the matter, Mr Keating told the court.
The matter was consequently heard ex-parte, in the absence of Mr Tran.
In considering the fine amount, Mr Connellan said it was not “open slather”.
He also had to consider principles of fairness and natural justice, and to be “circumspect” given he knew “very little” about Mr Tran and the company.
“It would take something extraordinary to impose the maximum.”
L&A Bakery was convicted and fined $80,000, and ordered to pay the council costs of $18,000.
Mr Tran was fined $15,000 with conviction, with costs of $6000.
The council’s city amenity director Jody Bosman said a formal closure order and legal action was the “only option”.
This was due to “the lack of action from the proprietor, the unsanitary condition and state of disrepair of the business”.
“This outcome was a result of Council’s Environmental Health Officers working hard to bring the business into compliance with the Food Act and remove the risk it posed to public health and safety.”
