Restaurant gets third fine for oil pollution

A FAIRWOOD fast food restaurant that poured water down the drain with 14 times the permitted level of grease and oil has been handed a $50,000 pollution fine.

It was the third conviction for the restaurant chain this year and occurred at its Sha Tin Centre Street branch. The other offences took place in Fanling and Chai Wan.

The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) announced the offence yesterday in its monthly list of prosecutions and Fairwood was among 50 companies listed.

Principal environmental protection officer, Patrick Lei Chi-kong, said the Sha Tin restaurant had not cleaned its grease trap so most of the grease and oil was being discharged straight into Tolo Harbour.

The company was fined $20,000 in April for a similar offence in Fanling and $50,000 in June for one in Chai Wan.

Mr Lei said the department had urged Fairwood to operate its waste-water system properly and felt it was within the resources of the fast food chain to do so.

Fairwood's senior manager for development, Raina Choy Kit-hung, said they did their best to comply with all the regulations required by various government departments, such as the EPD, Health Department and Regional and Urban Services departments.

But some of the restaurants were older and probably needed new equipment or more frequent maintenance ''to comply with the ever-increasing and more stringent requirements'', she said.

Ms Choy said they had sent notices to their restaurants reminding them to comply with the regulations.

Fairwood was among 14 repeat offenders on yesterday's list. Most were appearing for the second or third time.

but Gammon Construction Ltd was making its sixth appearance for noise pollution and was fined $10,000.

The firm was fined for using noisy equipment after hours during work at the Western Harbour Crossing.