CLERMONT, FL. A state inspector walked into I Love NY Pizza on Cagan Park Avenue on April 28 and found food sourced from an unapproved or unknown supplier, meaning the ingredients on that day's menu had bypassed federal safety inspections entirely, with no way to trace them if a customer got sick.
That was one of ten high-severity violations documented at the Clermont restaurant in a single visit. The facility was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector also cited the restaurant for inadequate shell stock identification records. Shellfish, including oysters, clams, and mussels, are consumed raw or lightly cooked, and without proper tagging records, there is no way to identify the harvest source if a customer becomes ill.
Toxic chemicals were found improperly stored or labeled near food. That violation carries an acute risk: mislabeled or misplaced cleaning chemicals can contaminate food directly, and in a kitchen without a manager actively performing supervisory duties, that kind of error can go unnoticed.
The inspector found no person in charge present or performing duties. No employee health policy was in place, and employees were not reporting symptoms of illness. Those three violations together describe a kitchen with no formal structure to stop a sick worker from handling food.
Improper handwashing technique rounded out the picture. An employee who attempts to wash their hands but does it wrong leaves pathogens on their skin. Combined with no illness reporting and no health policy, the handwashing citation means the facility's only line of defense against direct contamination from sick workers was not functioning.
On the intermediate side, inspectors documented improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, single-use items being reused, inadequate ventilation and lighting, improper use of wiping cloths, and equipment in poor repair.
What These Violations Mean
Food from an unapproved source is not a paperwork problem. When ingredients enter a kitchen outside the USDA and FDA inspection chain, there is no way to verify they were handled safely at the farm, the processor, or the distributor. If a customer gets sick, investigators have no trail to follow. The same logic applies to the shellfish records violation: oysters and clams are filter feeders that concentrate bacteria and viruses from surrounding water, and the tagging system exists specifically so that contaminated harvests can be traced and recalled.
Undercooking is the mechanism by which Salmonella, E. coli, and Campylobacter survive to reach a customer's plate. Poultry must reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit to kill Salmonella. When a facility is also cited for food contact surfaces that are not properly cleaned and sanitized, the risk compounds: bacteria that survive on a cutting board or prep surface transfer directly to the next item placed on it.
The combination of no employee health policy, no illness reporting, and improper handwashing is what public health officials describe as the conditions that precede outbreaks, not just individual cases. Norovirus, which causes roughly 20 million illnesses in the United States each year, spreads most efficiently when a sick food worker handles ready-to-eat food with contaminated hands. A written health policy requiring workers to report symptoms is the checkpoint designed to catch that before it happens. This facility had none.
Improperly stored toxic chemicals represent a separate and immediate hazard. A cleaning product stored next to or above food, or in an unlabeled container, can cause acute poisoning if it contaminates an ingredient or gets mistaken for a food-safe product.
The Longer Record
The April 28 inspection was not an anomaly. State records show 34 inspections on file for I Love NY Pizza, with 449 total violations documented across that history.
The most recent prior inspection, on December 22, 2025, produced 8 high-severity and 2 intermediate violations. Before that, on June 13, 2025, inspectors cited the restaurant for 13 high-severity and 3 intermediate violations, the highest single-visit count in the recent record. A follow-up visit five days later, on June 17, still found 6 high-severity violations, and a second follow-up on June 18 found 4 more high-severity violations.
January 2025 showed the same pattern: a January 21 inspection found 12 high-severity violations, and a follow-up on January 30 still produced 4 high-severity citations. The facility has never been emergency-closed.
The Pattern
What the inspection history shows is not a restaurant that occasionally falls short. It is a restaurant that has been cited for high-severity violations in every inspection on record across more than a year, including multiple instances where follow-up visits found additional high-severity problems after the original inspection.
The April 28 visit produced the second-highest single-visit high-severity count in the recent record, behind only the June 2025 inspection. The violations this time included categories, such as unapproved food sourcing, no illness policy, and improperly stored chemicals, that represent systemic failures rather than isolated lapses.
After 34 inspections, 449 documented violations, and a visit that found ten high-severity problems in a single afternoon, I Love NY Pizza on Cagan Park Avenue was still open for business.