PANAMA CITY, FL. A state inspector visiting Fins Japanese Sushi & Grill at 732 W 23rd Street on May 19, 2026 found that the restaurant had not followed required parasite destruction procedures for its fish, a failure that puts customers at direct risk of ingesting live parasites including Anisakis and tapeworm in dishes served raw or undercooked.
That was one of eight high-severity violations documented in a single visit.
The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite destruction failure is particularly significant at a sushi restaurant, where raw or lightly prepared fish is the core of the menu. State rules require that fish served raw be frozen to specific temperatures for a set duration to kill parasites before it reaches a customer's plate. The inspector found those procedures were not being followed.
Food was also not being cooked to required minimum temperatures, a separate high-severity citation. At a restaurant where cooked items share a menu with raw ones, that combination means neither preparation method was reliably safe.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled. That violation, alongside food contact surfaces not properly cleaned or sanitized and multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, means the physical environment of the kitchen was failing at multiple points simultaneously.
The restaurant also had no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. For a sushi restaurant, that notice is the last line of defense for customers who are elderly, pregnant, or immunocompromised and need to know what they are ordering.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction failure carries a specific and direct risk. Anisakis, a roundworm found in raw fish, can embed itself in the stomach lining and cause intense abdominal pain, vomiting, and in severe cases require surgical removal. Proper freezing protocols, required by state code, are designed to kill these organisms before fish is served. When a restaurant skips that step, the fish on the plate may contain live parasites.
The handwashing violations compound every other risk in the kitchen. Two separate citations, one for inadequate handwashing facilities and one for improper technique, mean that even when staff attempted to wash their hands, the infrastructure and the method were both failing. Studies consistently show that improper handwashing technique leaves measurable pathogen loads on hands even after washing.
The absence of an employee health policy means there is no documented system for keeping sick workers out of food preparation. Norovirus, one of the most common causes of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurants, spreads most efficiently through infected food handlers who do not know they are required to report symptoms or stay home.
Improperly stored or mislabeled toxic chemicals near food represent a different category of risk entirely. Chemical contamination of food does not always produce obvious symptoms immediately, and without proper labeling, a poisoning incident can be difficult to trace quickly.
The Longer Record
The May 2026 inspection was not an anomaly. Fins Japanese Sushi & Grill has accumulated 187 violations across 30 inspections on record, and the pattern of high-severity citations stretches back years without a sustained break.
The December 2025 inspection found 5 high-severity and 4 intermediate violations. The January 2025 inspection found 7 high-severity violations. The July 2024 inspection found 5 high-severity violations, and the January 2024 inspection found 4. Every inspection in the record going back to at least late 2022 has produced multiple high-severity citations.
The one exception was May 11, 2023, when inspectors recorded zero high and zero intermediate violations. Three days later, on May 8, a separate inspection found 5 high-severity violations. That single clean inspection sits in the middle of a record otherwise defined by repeated serious findings.
The restaurant was emergency-closed once before, on July 15, 2020, after inspectors found roach activity. It was allowed to reopen the following day. That closure is the only time the state moved to shut the facility down.
The Longer Pattern
Eight high-severity violations in a single inspection represents the worst single-visit result in the recent record for this restaurant, edging past the 7 high-severity violations found in January 2025. The categories overlap across years: food contact surface failures, handwashing deficiencies, and temperature or preparation protocol violations appear repeatedly.
The parasite destruction failure is the kind of citation that carries particular weight at a sushi restaurant, where raw fish preparation is not incidental to the menu but central to it. It appeared in the May 2026 inspection record alongside a failure to cook food to required temperatures, meaning neither the raw preparations nor the cooked ones met state safety standards on the same day.
Fins Japanese Sushi & Grill was open for business when the inspector left on May 19, 2026.