TAMPA, FL. When a state inspector walked into 7 Star Food Mart on September 14, the store was operating without a valid 2026 food permit, a violation inspectors had already cited before.
That was not the only repeat finding. Two of the ten violations documented that day had been noted in a previous inspection, meaning the store had been put on notice and the problems persisted.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector's most urgent finding was in the open air cooler in the retail area. Raw shell eggs were stored on a shelf directly above beverages, a setup that puts customers at risk of cross-contamination if any eggs crack or leak. The inspector noted the eggs were relocated to bottom shelving during the visit.
That correction happened on site. But none of the other nine violations were corrected during the inspection.
The permit violation carried a priority-level citation. According to the inspector's notes, the store was "operating without 2026 food permit," meaning its authorization to sell food to the public had lapsed and had not been renewed.
The missing permit was a repeat violation, flagged in at least one prior inspection. So was the failure to post a required sign in the retail area stating that hemp or hemp extract products intended for human consumption cannot be sold to anyone under 21 and that proof of age is required for purchase.
The inspector also found no sign posted for kratom products, which carry the same age-restriction requirement under Florida law. The notes say a sign was posted during the visit for both hemp and kratom, but the lack of signage for both controlled substances in the same inspection, with hemp cited as a repeat, raises questions about how consistently these requirements are being followed between inspections.
A Store Without a Safety Plan
Three separate violations pointed to gaps in how the store manages food safety at the staff level. The person in charge could not correctly answer questions related to foodborne illness prevention, which the inspector documented as a priority-foundation violation. Employees had not been informed in a verifiable way of their obligation to report health conditions that could spread foodborne illness. And the store had no written procedures for responding to a vomiting or diarrheal event.
Taken together, those three findings describe a store where the people responsible for food safety do not have the knowledge, the documentation, or the training protocols the state requires.
The inspector also noted white and black buildup on the three-compartment sink sprayer in the warewashing area, soda syrup buildup on the floor under soda syrup boxes in the back, and dumpster lids left open outside. None of those were corrected during the inspection.
Unpackaged foods in the retail area also lacked written notification of major food allergens, a requirement that protects customers with severe allergies.
What These Violations Mean
The raw egg storage violation is the most direct food safety hazard documented in this inspection. Raw shell eggs can carry Salmonella on the shell surface. When stored above ready-to-drink beverages in an open air cooler, any leakage or cracking can contaminate items that customers will consume without any cooking step to kill bacteria. The violation was corrected on site, but it reflects a fundamental storage practice that food handlers are expected to know without being prompted.
The three person-in-charge violations, taken together, describe a knowledge gap that can allow other problems to go unnoticed. When the person running a food establishment cannot answer basic questions about foodborne illness prevention, cannot confirm that employees know when to report symptoms, and has no written plan for handling a contamination event like vomiting or diarrhea, the store has no structured defense against an outbreak. Those aren't paperwork failures. They are the foundational procedures that health codes require precisely because contamination events happen and untrained staff respond badly without them.
Operating without a valid food permit means the store was selling food to the public without current state authorization, a status that also signals the store may not have gone through whatever renewal review the permit process requires.
The Longer Record
The inspection record for 7 Star Food Mart shows that at least two of the violations found on September 14 are not new discoveries. The missing hemp age-restriction sign and the lapsed food permit had both been cited in prior inspections, meaning inspectors flagged these problems, the store was put on notice, and the violations were present again when inspectors returned.
The permit violation is particularly notable as a repeat finding. A permit lapse is not a subtle or technical infraction. It is a threshold requirement that a store either meets or does not, and this store did not meet it for at least the second time on record.
The September 14 inspection was categorized as an "Operating Without a Valid Food Permit" visit that also evaluated general sanitation standards. Of the ten violations documented, zero were corrected on site except the egg relocation and the two age-restriction signs. The warewashing buildup, the floor contamination, the open dumpsters, the missing allergen notice, and the three person-in-charge policy failures all remained unresolved when the inspector left.
