DORAL, FL. A state inspector walked into Ohana Sushi on Northwest 107th Avenue on July 21 and found that the restaurant was not following parasite destruction procedures for its raw fish, a violation that means customers ordering sushi could be consuming fish that carries live Anisakis roundworms or tapeworm larvae.
That was one of seven high-severity violations cited that day. The restaurant was not closed.
What Inspectors Found
The parasite destruction citation is the most direct threat to anyone who ordered raw fish that day. State rules require sushi-grade fish to be frozen to specific temperatures for specific time periods before it can be served raw, a process that kills parasites that survive in whole fish. Without documentation that this process was followed, there is no way to verify the fish served was safe.
The inspector also cited the restaurant for no allergen awareness demonstrated by staff. Food allergies affect 32 million Americans, and allergic reactions send roughly 30,000 people to emergency rooms each year. A sushi restaurant, where dishes routinely contain shellfish, soy, sesame, and fish, carries a particularly high burden to identify and communicate allergen content accurately.
There was also no written employee health policy on site. Without one, there is no formal mechanism to keep sick workers out of the kitchen. A single employee working through a Norovirus infection can contaminate food that reaches dozens of tables before anyone notices.
Two more high-severity violations involved food safety controls that should be routine at any restaurant. Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized, creating a direct path for bacterial transfer between raw and ready-to-eat foods. Time as a public health control was not being properly applied, meaning food was being held in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, without the documentation or limits the practice requires.
Rounding out the seven high-severity citations: improper handwashing technique by employees, and no consumer advisory posted for raw or undercooked foods. The consumer advisory requirement exists specifically to warn elderly customers, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems that raw fish carries inherent risk.
The five intermediate violations included improper sewage or wastewater disposal, multi-use utensils not properly cleaned, improper sanitizing solution or procedures, inadequate cooling and cold-holding equipment, and inadequate ventilation and lighting.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction failure and the allergen awareness failure are not paperwork problems. They are the conditions under which a diner gets hurt without ever knowing why.
Parasites in raw fish, including Anisakis, which burrows into the stomach lining, and various tapeworm species, are killed by freezing to negative four degrees Fahrenheit for seven days, or by other approved methods. When a restaurant cannot demonstrate it followed those procedures, the customer absorbing that risk is the person who ordered the salmon roll.
The allergen violation compounds this. At a sushi restaurant, where cross-contact between shellfish, fish, soy, and sesame is a constant preparation reality, a staff that cannot demonstrate allergen awareness is a staff that cannot reliably answer a customer's question about what is in their food. That gap between a customer's question and a correct answer is where anaphylaxis begins.
The sewage disposal violation, listed as intermediate, carries its own severity. Improper wastewater disposal creates fecal contamination risk throughout the facility. Combined with improperly cleaned utensils and a sanitizing solution that was either too weak or improperly applied, the inspection record describes a kitchen where multiple layers of contamination control had failed at the same time.
The Longer Record
The July 21 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Ohana Sushi has been inspected 24 times and has accumulated 246 total violations over its inspection history, with zero emergency closures.
The most recent inspections tell a consistent story. In February 2026, five months before this inspection, the restaurant drew six high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. In August 2025, it drew three high and three intermediate. In December 2024, four high and one intermediate. The restaurant has logged high-severity violations in every inspection on record going back to at least January 2023, when it received eight high-severity violations and three intermediate ones in a single visit.
The parasite destruction violation cited this July is not a first-time finding at a sushi restaurant that stumbled on a technicality. It is a violation that appeared in a facility that has been inspected more than two dozen times and has never been emergency-closed despite a cumulative record that shows persistent, repeated failure at the highest severity tier the state uses.
The Longer Pattern
Across eight prior inspections dating to 2023, Ohana Sushi was cited for high-severity violations every single time. The counts ranged from one to eight in a single visit. The July 2026 inspection, at seven high-severity violations, is the second-highest single-visit total in that window.
The state's emergency closure mechanism exists for exactly these circumstances, when a facility poses an immediate danger to the public. A restaurant serving raw fish without documented parasite destruction procedures, with no allergen awareness, no employee health policy, improperly sanitized surfaces, and malfunctioning cold-holding equipment meets a straightforward definition of immediate danger.
On July 21, inspectors documented all of that, wrote it up, and left. Ohana Sushi remained open for service.
