DAMMAM, 9 January 2007 — Municipal authorities have stepped up inspections of shops, eateries and workshops in the Eastern Province. Daifallah Al-Otaiby, the mayor of Dammam, said the municipal authorities have fined eateries for health code violations and have made efforts to clean the roads of abandoned vehicles.
“The officials will continue their inspections,” said the mayor. “They will also see that street vendors do not sell unhygienic food.”
Since Ramadan, the officials have conducted 7,320 site inspections. The mayor said 501 shops have been shuttered and 638 kilograms of food has been confiscated. About SR1 million in fines have been imposed.
“The municipality has taken steps to guarantee that the shops and workshops under its jurisdiction do not violate the regulations that govern their operations, in keeping with the instructions of the mayor,” Mazen ibn Aadel Bakharji, chairman of the Central Dammam municipality.
The municipal inspectors also arrested a number of people running unlicensed kitchens in a crude and unhygienic manner. They shuttered three workshops for motorcycles in residential areas.
Officials also discovered illegally operating dry-cleaning and tailoring shops and media piracy establishments
