BOCA RATON, FL. Back in March 2026, state inspectors walked into a Boca Raton convenience store and found the person in charge unable to answer fundamental questions about foodborne illness, including which symptoms should keep an employee out of the store and what conditions require a worker to be removed from food handling entirely.
The inspection of 7-Eleven Store #19111B, operated by Hasina Investment Group Inc., took place on March 26, 2026. Inspectors with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services documented four violations. None were classified as priority violations, and none were marked as repeat findings.
The store met sanitation inspection requirements overall, but the violations recorded that day pointed to gaps in food safety training that extended from the person running the store down to the written procedures posted on the walls, or rather, the absence of them.
What Inspectors Found
UNRESOLVED AT INSPECTION
CORRECTED ON SITE
The inspector's notes on the person in charge were direct: the individual "was unable to correctly respond to questions relating to food borne disease and symptoms that may cause food borne disease" and "was unable to relate to conditions of restriction and exclusion."
That second phrase matters. Restriction and exclusion are the two formal mechanisms Florida uses to keep sick food workers away from customers. Restriction limits what duties an ill employee can perform. Exclusion removes them from the premises entirely. Not knowing the difference, or when each applies, means those protections exist only on paper.
A second violation compounded the first. The inspector found that the person in charge "was unable to ensure that food employees were informed in a verifiable manner to report their illness and or symptoms relate to diseases that are transmissible through food." In plain terms, there was no documented system confirming that employees had been told when and how to report being sick.
The store also had no written procedures for handling accidental vomiting or diarrheal incidents, a separate violation the inspector noted specifically. That kind of written plan is required because norovirus and similar pathogens spread easily through contaminated surfaces, and a cleanup done without a protocol can spread contamination rather than contain it.
One violation was corrected during the inspection. The food service area had no hand wash soap at the hand wash sink when the inspector arrived. The person in charge provided soap before the inspector left.
What These Violations Mean
The three unresolved violations at this 7-Eleven all point to the same underlying problem: the person responsible for food safety operations that day did not have a working knowledge of the rules designed to prevent customers from getting sick.
Florida requires that a "person in charge" be present at every food establishment during operating hours, and that person must be able to demonstrate knowledge of foodborne illness prevention. The requirement exists because the person in charge is the last line of defense when an employee comes to work sick, when a cleanup goes wrong, or when a question arises about whether a food product is safe to sell. At this store in March 2026, that line of defense had visible gaps.
The absence of a verifiable employee illness reporting system is not a paperwork technicality. Norovirus, Salmonella, Shigella, and hepatitis A can all be transmitted by a food worker who handles products while symptomatic. When employees don't know they are required to report symptoms, or when no system exists to document that reporting, sick workers can handle food without anyone intervening.
The missing vomiting and diarrhea cleanup procedures carry a similar risk. Norovirus in particular survives on surfaces for days and requires specific disinfectants at specific concentrations to be neutralized. A store without a written protocol is relying on improvised cleanup, which studies consistently show is less effective at eliminating contamination.
The Longer Record
The March 2026 inspection produced four violations, none of them classified as priority level and none flagged as repeats from a prior visit. That context matters when reading the findings.
None of the four violations documented on March 26 were marked as having appeared in a previous inspection of this location, which means inspectors had not flagged the same problems before, at least not in any prior record tied to this data. The store met overall sanitation requirements and was not ordered closed.
Still, the three violations that were not corrected on site, the knowledge gaps around foodborne illness, the absent employee illness reporting system, and the missing cleanup procedures, were left unresolved when the inspector walked out the door. Whether the operator addressed them after the inspection is not reflected in the data from that visit.
The hand wash soap violation was the only finding corrected before the inspector left. Three of the four documented problems remained open at the close of the March 26 inspection.