Boston Chipotle Restaurant Expected to Reopen Thursday
Boston city officials will allow Chipotle to reopen tomorrow.
— -- The Cleveland Circle Chipotle in Boston, which Boston health officials said was the site of a norovirus outbreak, has been cleared to reopen Thursday after it passed a city inspection.
Boston's Inspectional Services Department told ABC News the restaurant was disinfected and nearly all of its employees tested negative for the virus. The restaurant was forced to close by city officials on Dec. 7 because of three health violations, officials said. The violations were meat heated below 140 degrees, an employee that worked while sick and multiple reports of foodborne illness from that location.
An employee who felt sick continued to work on Dec. 3 despite violating restaurant policy, according to William "Buddy" Christopher, the department's commissioner. That worker and at least one other employee who tested positive for norovirus are not allowed into the building until their tests are negative, Christopher said. Nineteen employees have been cleared to return to work, he added.
The suspension was lifted after the restaurant passed the city's inspection, Christopher said.
"Effective tomorrow morning, [Chipotle] can go back into business," he said. "They have to re-stock the store and prep. They have not been pressuring us to re-open. They have been working very closely with us."
More than 130 Boston College students reported gastrointestinal symptoms after they said they ate at the Cleveland Circle Chipotle this month. The company said these cases were unrelated to the E.coli outbreak affecting Chipotle locations around the country.
As of Dec. 18, 53 people in nine states who ate at Chipotle restaurants have been infected with the STEC O26 strain of E.coli, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC is also investigating another E.coli outbreak of a different, rare strain that may be linked to Chipotle.
Chipotle spokesperson Chris Arnold told ABC News today that the Boston restaurant will be "resupplied and reopened quickly."
"The CDC reports that there are more than 250,000 cases of E coli annually, more than 20 million cases of norovirus annually, and approximately 48 million incidents of foodborne illness every year," Chipotle says on its website. "While no one can ever eliminate all of the risk associated with food, since this incident began, we have begun implementing an enhanced food safety plan that will eliminate or mitigate risk to a level near zero."
Arnold told ABC News in a statement yesterday that since the E.coli outbreak was discovered earlier this month, "we have completed a comprehensive reassessment of our food safety programs with an eye to finding best practices for each of the ingredients we use. We are now in the process of implementing those programs, including high resolution testing of ingredients, end of shelf-life testing of ingredients, continuous improvement in the supply system based on testing data, and enhanced food safety training for all of our restaurant teams. With all of these programs in place, we are confident that we can achieve a level of food safety risk that is near zero."
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