JACKSONVILLE, FL. State inspectors walked into China Dragon at 4345 University Blvd S on September 10 and found toxic chemicals improperly stored or labeled near food, one of six high-severity violations documented that day. The restaurant was not closed.
The inspection turned up a list that included food in poor condition, mislabeled or adulterated; food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized; improper handwashing technique; no written employee health policy; and time as a public health control not being properly applied. Two additional intermediate violations covered multi-use utensils not properly cleaned and improper sanitizing solution or procedures.
Eight violations in a single inspection. Six of them high-severity. The restaurant remained open to customers.
What Inspectors Found
The chemical storage violation is among the most immediately dangerous findings on the list. Cleaning agents, sanitizers, and pesticides stored near or above food preparation surfaces can contaminate food directly, and mislabeled containers mean workers may not recognize what they are handling.
The food adulteration finding is a separate alarm. Spoiled or contaminated food that reaches a customer's plate is not a paperwork problem. It is the direct mechanism of a foodborne illness outbreak.
The handwashing violation compounds both of those risks. Inspectors did not simply find that employees skipped handwashing. They found that the technique used was improper, meaning pathogens can remain on hands even after a washing attempt. Every surface those hands touched afterward, including food contact surfaces, becomes a transfer point.
The employee health policy violation closes the loop. Without a written policy requiring sick workers to stay home or report symptoms, a worker with Norovirus, Salmonella, or Hepatitis A has no formal barrier between their illness and the food they are preparing.
What These Violations Mean
The combination of violations documented at China Dragon on September 10 describes a kitchen where multiple contamination pathways were open at the same time. Improperly cleaned food contact surfaces, cutting boards and prep tables in particular, are among the most common vehicles for bacterial transfer in commercial kitchens. When those surfaces also go through a sanitizing step with improper concentration or procedure, the cleaning cycle fails entirely.
The time-as-public-health-control violation is one that often gets less attention than it deserves. When a kitchen uses time rather than temperature to keep food safe, meaning food is held in the temperature danger zone between 41 and 135 degrees for a controlled period, that process requires strict tracking. Without it, food can sit in bacterial growth conditions for hours beyond safe limits, and there is no way to know how long it has been there.
Multi-use utensils not properly cleaned develop bacterial biofilms within 24 hours of improper washing. Those biofilms are not removed by a simple rinse and resist standard sanitizers, meaning they become a persistent source of contamination across every service that follows.
Taken together, the violations at China Dragon on September 10 represent failures at nearly every stage of safe food handling, from the health of the workers preparing food to the cleanliness of the surfaces and tools they use to the chemical safety of the environment around the food itself.
The Longer Record
China Dragon has 23 inspections on record and 251 total violations across that history. That is not the profile of a restaurant working through a rough patch.
The most recent prior inspection, conducted February 9 of this year, produced 8 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations. The inspection before that, in October 2025, produced 4 high and 3 intermediate. Go back further: January 2025 brought 8 high and 1 intermediate. August 2024 produced 3 high. January 2024 brought 6 high and 1 intermediate.
The pattern holds without interruption back through 2022. Six high-severity violations in September 2022. Six more in August 2023. Six more in January 2024. Six more again on September 10, 2026.
China Dragon has never been emergency-closed in its 23 inspections on record. In the same span it has accumulated 251 violations, the majority of them at the highest severity level the state assigns.
Still Open
State inspectors documented six high-severity violations at China Dragon on September 10, 2026, including toxic chemicals improperly stored near food, adulterated food, failed handwashing technique, unsanitized food contact surfaces, improper use of time as a public health control, and no written employee health policy.
The restaurant was not closed.
It was the eighth consecutive inspection in the available record to produce high-severity violations. The 251st, 252nd, 253rd, 254th, 255th, 256th, 257th, and 258th violations documented at this location are now part of the public record.
China Dragon remained open for business.
