PLANT CITY, FL. Back in March 2026, a state inspector walked into the restroom at a Plant City convenience store and found candies, snacks, and kratom products sitting on the shelves.
That was the scene at Murphy USA #5595 on March 5, 2026, when a Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspector cited the store for five violations, including two that had been flagged on a previous visit.
What Inspectors Found
The restroom finding was the most direct. The inspector's notes read: "Candies, snacks, and kratom stored in restroom." According to the record, the food items were relocated to proper storage during the visit, making it one of the few things corrected on the spot.
The kratom products flagged for improper storage were separately cited under a different violation. The inspector noted that the store was selling "Feel Free" kratom products without the correct permit classification, writing that "the firm type will be updated to reflect the sale of these products." That correction was administrative, not immediate.
The store also lacked a probe thermometer. The inspector noted no temperature violation was observed during the visit, but the absence of a working thermometer means there was no reliable way to verify the safety of any temperature-sensitive prepackaged products on the shelves.
Two Violations Flagged Before
The food stored in the restroom was a repeat violation. So was the absence of written procedures for employees responding to vomiting or diarrhea events. Both had been cited in a prior inspection.
The repeat status matters. A violation that appears once can be attributed to an oversight. The same violation appearing on a follow-up inspection means the problem was documented, the store was put on notice, and the condition persisted.
Neither of the two repeat violations was corrected on site during the March 5 inspection. The record shows zero violations corrected on site overall, though the inspector's own notes describe the food items being moved out of the restroom during the visit. That discrepancy is in the data as filed.
What These Violations Mean
Storing food in a restroom is not a technical paperwork problem. Restrooms carry airborne contamination from human waste, and food kept there, even in sealed packaging, is exposed to that environment. State food safety rules prohibit it for exactly that reason. At a convenience store where customers pick up packaged snacks and drinks, food that passed through a restroom before hitting the shelf is a basic sanitation failure.
The missing written procedures for vomiting and diarrhea response are more consequential than they sound. When an employee or customer has a gastrointestinal incident in a retail food environment, the cleanup protocol determines whether norovirus or other pathogens spread to food contact surfaces, products, or other people. A store without a written plan has no standard to enforce and no guarantee that staff know what to do. This violation was marked "Pf," meaning it is a priority foundation item under state rules, and it had already been cited before.
The kratom sales issue adds a separate layer. The store was selling "Feel Free" kratom products without the proper permit classification. Kratom is a botanical product that falls under FDACS oversight when sold in retail food establishments, and selling it without the correct facility designation means the store was operating outside its licensed scope. The inspector noted the firm type would be updated, but that is a regulatory fix, not a safety clearance.
The missing probe thermometer is a supporting concern. Without one, staff have no way to check whether any refrigerated or temperature-sensitive products are holding at safe temperatures. The inspector found no temperature violations during this visit, but the absence of a thermometer means any temperature problems that existed could have gone undetected.
The Longer Record
The inspection history at this location is short. The March 5, 2026 visit was followed by a focused inspection on March 17, 2026, which found zero violations. That follow-up result suggests the store addressed the most immediate concerns after the initial citation.
But the two repeat violations on March 5 indicate that the problems documented that day were not new. The food storage in the restroom and the missing vomiting and diarrhea procedures had both been identified in a prior inspection, meaning the store had already been given the opportunity to fix them and had not done so before the March visit.
The March 17 clean inspection is the most recent record on file. What it does not answer is whether the kratom permit classification was formally updated or whether the written employee procedures were put in place. Those items were noted for administrative correction, not marked resolved on site.