GAINESVILLE, FL. Back in January 2026, state inspectors walked into Green Apple, a convenience store with a food service counter on the retail floor, and found the establishment unable to produce a written procedure for responding to a vomiting or diarrheal event, a lapse inspectors had already flagged at the same location before.
That single finding, marked as a repeat violation, was one of six total cited during the January 20 inspection. None were corrected on site before inspectors left.
What Inspectors Found
The food service counter at the back of the store carried pickled items sold by the piece, including pickles, pickled eggs, sausage and pig's feet. The inspector noted three tong utensils offered for four different containers, meaning at least one container had no dedicated utensil. Customers reaching for product would have had to share a tong between items, or use their hands.
The ware washing area, where food-contact equipment gets cleaned, had no soap at the adjacent handwash station. Inspectors also found the establishment could not demonstrate, in any verifiable manner, that employees understood their health reporting responsibilities.
Physical conditions inside the store had deteriorated in multiple areas. The customer restroom had damaged ceiling tiles. The walk-in cooler had both damaged and missing floor tiles. Water-stained ceiling tiles were visible near the soda fountain in the retail area.
The front doors had a visible gap exposing daylight between them, a condition the inspector recorded as a potential entry point for insects and rodents.
What These Violations Mean
The repeat violation for missing vomiting and diarrheal event procedures is not a paperwork technicality. When a customer or employee becomes ill inside a food establishment, bodily fluids can carry norovirus and other pathogens that survive on surfaces for hours. A written cleanup procedure ensures staff know to isolate the area, use the correct disinfectant concentration, and handle contaminated materials without spreading the pathogen further. Green Apple did not have that procedure documented during this inspection, and inspectors had already cited the store for the same gap before.
The absence of employee health reporting documentation compounds that risk. Stores are required to ensure employees know when to stay home or report symptoms, and to keep records showing that training happened. Without that documentation, there is no way to verify that a sick employee working the food counter would know to stop handling food.
No soap at the handwash sink in the ware washing area means the sink was effectively non-functional as a hygiene station. Handwashing is the most basic control against transferring contamination from surfaces or skin onto food or food-contact equipment. A sink without soap is not a handwash station.
The shared utensil situation at the pickled-item counter is a direct cross-contamination concern. Customers selecting pig's feet and then using the same tong for pickled eggs transfer whatever was on the first item to the second. For customers with allergies, that exchange is not a minor inconvenience.
The Longer Record
The January 2026 inspection was not Green Apple's first. State records show a prior FDACS inspection at the same location on June 4, 2024, when inspectors cited 15 violations. That inspection also met requirements, meaning the store cleared the threshold for continued operation, but the violation count was more than double what inspectors found in January 2026.
The missing vomiting-event procedure was already on the record by that prior visit. When inspectors returned in January 2026, it was still unresolved. That makes it a documented repeat, not an oversight caught for the first time.
Two inspections across roughly nineteen months is not a dense inspection history, but the pattern within those two visits is clear. The store has moved from 15 violations to 6, which represents measurable improvement in total count. The repeat violation, however, shows that at least one specific procedural gap persisted through that entire stretch without being addressed.
Where Things Stood When Inspectors Left
The inspection closed with Green Apple meeting sanitation requirements, which means the store was not ordered to close. But none of the six violations were corrected on site during the inspection.
That includes the missing soap at the handwash sink, the shared utensil at the pickled-item counter, and the written procedure for vomiting events that inspectors had already asked for before. All six findings remained unresolved when the inspector walked out the door on January 20, 2026.