MIAMI, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors walked into a Miami convenience store and found it operating without a valid food permit, a basic legal requirement for any establishment that sells food to the public.
The inspection of Hightime Market, a convenience and prepackaged food store, was conducted on February 23, 2026 by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It was triggered specifically because the store was operating without a valid food permit. Inspectors documented five violations before the visit was complete.
What Inspectors Found
The permit violation was the reason for the inspection in the first place. The inspector's notes state plainly: "The food establishment is operating without a valid food permit." The store had submitted an application, and the inspector noted that the establishment was required to remit payment of the appropriate fee within ten days.
No violations were corrected on site during the February visit.
Among the more serious findings, the inspector noted that no probe thermometer was available anywhere in the store to assess cold holding temperatures. For a retail food establishment stocking refrigerated and prepackaged goods, that means staff had no way to verify whether cold cases were keeping products at safe temperatures.
The store also had no written procedures for employees to follow in the event of a vomit or diarrhea discharge on the premises. The inspector provided guidance documentation by email, but the store had no such plan in place at the time of the visit.
No certified food protection manager was on staff, a requirement for food establishments under state rules. And the employee unisex restroom had no covered trash receptacle, a basic sanitation standard the store had not met.
What These Violations Mean
The permit violation is not a paperwork technicality. A food permit is the mechanism through which the state verifies that a retail food establishment meets minimum safety standards before it opens its doors to customers. Operating without one means the store had been selling food to Miami shoppers without that baseline legal clearance in place.
The missing probe thermometer carries direct risk for anyone buying refrigerated or perishable prepackaged products. Without a functioning thermometer and a staff member trained to use it, there is no way to catch a failing refrigeration unit before the food inside reaches temperatures where bacteria grow rapidly. The inspector found no such device anywhere in the store.
The absence of written vomit and diarrhea response procedures may sound minor, but it is a recognized disease transmission pathway in retail food environments. When a contamination event happens and staff have no written protocol, the cleanup is improvised, and pathogens can remain on surfaces that customers and employees continue to touch.
The lack of a certified food protection manager compounds all of the above. State rules require that someone at each food establishment hold a recognized food safety certification, because that person is responsible for ensuring the other protections are in place. At Hightime Market in February, that role was unfilled.
The Longer Record
The February 23 inspection was recorded as an operating-without-a-valid-food-permit check, meaning it was not a routine scheduled visit. The inspection was initiated because the store had no active permit, not because inspectors had flagged it for a follow-up on prior violations.
The data shows no prior inspections on record for this facility, which means this was the first documented FDACS inspection of the location. That context matters: the store was not a repeat violator caught in a familiar pattern. It was a store that regulators reached for the first time, and found operating outside the legal framework entirely.
None of the five violations were marked as repeat citations, and none were corrected during the inspection itself. The two priority foundation violations, the missing thermometer and the absent emergency procedures, remained unresolved when the inspector left.
Where Things Stood
At the close of the February 23 visit, the store had been told to remit payment for its food permit application within ten days. Whether that payment was made, and whether a follow-up inspection confirmed the remaining violations were addressed, is not reflected in the data from this inspection.
What the record does show is that on the day inspectors arrived, Hightime Market had no valid food permit, no thermometer to check cold food temperatures, and no written plan for handling a contamination event on its floor.