NARANJA, FL. Workers at China Fun on South Dixie Highway were storing toxic chemicals improperly near food on June 22, state inspection records show, one of eight high-severity violations an inspector documented that day at the Naranja restaurant. The facility was not emergency-closed.
The June 22 inspection turned up a list that included violations directly tied to how illness spreads from a kitchen to a dining room: no written employee health policy, employees not reporting illness symptoms, inadequate handwashing facilities, and improper handwashing technique. All four were flagged as high severity.
What Inspectors Found
The chemical storage violation is among the most immediately dangerous on the list. Cleaning compounds and sanitizers stored or labeled incorrectly near food preparation areas can contaminate food directly, and mislabeled containers have caused acute poisoning cases when workers mistake chemicals for food-safe liquids.
The food contact surfaces violation adds a second contamination pathway. Cutting boards, prep tables, and equipment that are not properly cleaned and sanitized between uses can transfer bacteria from raw proteins to ready-to-eat food, a mechanism behind some of the most common foodborne illness outbreaks traced to restaurant kitchens.
The inspector also cited the restaurant for using time as a public health control without doing so properly. When a kitchen relies on time rather than refrigeration to keep food safe, the food is intentionally held in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, for a set window. If that window is not tracked and documented correctly, food sits at unsafe temperatures indefinitely. The restaurant had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked menu items, leaving customers with no notice that certain dishes carry elevated risk.
What These Violations Mean
The employee illness violations, taken together, describe a kitchen without a functional barrier against sick workers preparing food. The absence of a written health policy means there is no documented standard requiring employees to report symptoms like vomiting or diarrhea before a shift. The separate citation for employees actually failing to report symptoms suggests the gap is not theoretical.
Norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads most efficiently when an infected food worker handles ready-to-eat food without reporting illness. A single sick employee working one shift can expose dozens of customers.
The handwashing violations compound the risk. Inadequate facilities means the physical infrastructure for proper hand hygiene is missing or inaccessible. The improper technique violation means that even when washing attempts are made, pathogens remain on hands. Both violations were cited on the same inspection, meaning the restaurant had neither the setup nor the practice to interrupt contamination.
The utensil cleaning citation, flagged as intermediate, carries its own sustained risk. Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils develop bacterial biofilms within 24 hours. Those biofilms protect bacteria from standard sanitizing steps, meaning contamination can persist across multiple service periods even when staff believe they are cleaning equipment.
The Longer Record
The June 22 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show China Fun has been inspected 28 times and has accumulated 326 total violations across its history. The restaurant has never been emergency-closed.
The prior inspection record reads as a pattern, not a series of isolated incidents. On March 19, 2026, three months before the June inspection, an inspector cited the restaurant for nine high-severity violations and one intermediate. On February 3, 2025, the count was eight high-severity violations. On August 12, 2024, it was eight high-severity violations and two intermediate. On January 11, 2024, nine high-severity violations and three intermediate.
Going back further, the July 2023 inspection produced nine high-severity violations and two intermediate.
Six of the last eight inspections on record produced eight or nine high-severity violations each. The June 22 inspection, with eight high-severity citations, fits the middle of that range.
The day after the June 22 inspection, on June 23, a follow-up visit recorded zero high-severity and zero intermediate violations, suggesting the restaurant addressed the cited issues quickly enough to satisfy a return inspector. That same pattern, a heavy violation count followed by a clean follow-up, has repeated across the facility's inspection history without producing a closure.
Still Open
State inspectors documented eight high-severity violations at China Fun on June 22, including toxic chemicals improperly stored near food, no policy requiring sick workers to stay out of the kitchen, and food contact surfaces that were not properly cleaned or sanitized.
The restaurant was not closed.
It has accumulated 326 violations across 28 inspections and has never been emergency-closed once.
