AVENTURA, FL. Back in February 2026, a state inspector walked into Nan Gas 1, a convenience store on the Aventura side of Miami-Dade County, and found something that goes beyond a failed health score: the store was operating without a valid food permit entirely.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspection, conducted February 25, 2026, produced 15 total violations, including 2 priority violations and 4 priority-foundation violations. Inspectors issued multiple stop-use orders before leaving the premises. Not a single violation was corrected on site before the inspection concluded.
What Inspectors Found
The permit issue was the foundation of the inspection itself. According to the inspector's notes, "this food establishment is operating without a valid food permit and has not met all permitting requirements by providing approved documentation for sewage disposal to establishment." A stop-use order was issued on that basis alone.
The hot food case compounded the problem. Ham and cheese empanadas, beef empanadas, chicken empanadas, croquettes and tequenos were found inside the hot holding unit with internal temperatures between 108 and 111 degrees F. State food safety standards require hot-held items to stay at 135 degrees F or above. The inspector noted the items were reheated during the visit, but the case itself had already registered 109 degrees F when checked, and a stop-use order was placed on the unit as well.
A food employee was observed engaging in food processing without washing hands after returning from dumping garbage and changing gloves. The inspector flagged this as a priority violation. The handwashing sink near the three-compartment basin was also blocked by pans drying on its surface, making access impossible until inspectors intervened.
The person in charge did not correctly answer questions about foodborne illness symptoms or employee reporting responsibilities. The inspector documented "a pattern of non-compliance" tied to handwashing, hot holding and sanitation of clean equipment, all observed during the same visit.
Ham and cheese sandwiches, turkey and cheese sandwiches and miga ham sandwiches packaged on-site were missing ingredient and sub-ingredient information on their labels. They were pulled from customer reach during the inspection. Deli meats stored in the reach-in cooler under the prep table, including ham and cheese, carried no date labels.
An unlabeled container of sugar sat next to the espresso machine. Food employees were working with open food items without hair restraints. The outdoor dumpster had no lid, and multiple small flying insects were observed around it.
Stop-Use Orders and What Was Pulled
Four separate stop-use orders were issued during the February 25 inspection. Two were tied directly to the permit violation, citing Florida Food Law Chapter 5K-4. Two more were issued for unsanitary equipment, specifically citing food-contact surfaces that had not been properly cleaned and sanitized, and equipment that did not meet cleanability and construction standards.
The stop-use orders effectively prohibited the store from using the flagged equipment, including the hot holding unit, until conditions were corrected. A supplemental report was also issued during the visit, which the inspector noted "includes important information for management."
What These Violations Mean
Operating without a valid food permit is not a paperwork technicality. The permit process requires establishments to demonstrate, among other things, that sewage disposal meets state standards. When that documentation is absent, there is no verified assurance that basic sanitation infrastructure is functioning properly. Every customer who bought food at Nan Gas 1 before this inspection did so at a store the state had not cleared to operate.
The hot holding failure is a direct food safety risk. Bacteria multiply rapidly in the temperature range between 41 and 135 degrees F. Empanadas and croquettes sitting at 108 to 111 degrees F are squarely inside that danger zone. The longer food stays there, the greater the bacterial load a customer could consume.
The handwashing violation makes that risk more acute. An employee who dumps garbage and then handles food without washing hands introduces whatever contamination was on those surfaces directly into the food supply. The blocked handwashing sink meant that even an employee who intended to wash hands may have found it impractical to do so.
The person in charge's inability to correctly answer questions about foodborne illness and employee reporting is a systemic gap. If management cannot identify when a sick employee should be kept away from food, that employee may continue working and contaminate product across an entire shift.
The Longer Record
The FDACS inspection record available for Nan Gas 1 does not include a long history of prior inspections, which means this February 2026 visit may represent an early benchmark for the facility. What the record does show is that the inspection was triggered specifically because the store was operating without a valid food permit, a condition serious enough that the state classifies the visit as an "Operating Without a Valid Food Permit" inspection type.
None of the 15 violations documented were marked as repeats, but that designation requires a prior inspection to compare against. The absence of repeat flags does not mean the problems were new. It means the state had not previously documented them in a way that generated a comparison record.
The 0 corrected-on-site count is the figure that lingers. Inspectors reheated food, moved pans from the handwashing sink and relabeled deli meats during the visit, all noted as corrected during inspection in individual violation entries. But the official corrected-on-site count for the inspection as a whole remained zero, meaning the most serious underlying conditions, including the permit status and the stop-use orders on equipment, were unresolved when inspectors left the building.