TAMPA, FL. Back in January 2026, a state inspector walked into Orient Mobil, a convenience store on Tampa's east side, and found two live roaches and three dead roaches inside red cabinets at the counter area, and one more live roach crawling near the handwashing sink.
That single finding triggered stop-use orders for both the counter area and the handwashing sink. It was not the only thing wrong.
What Inspectors Found
Inspectors issued 46 separate orders at Orient Mobil on January 28, 2026, covering improperly labeled kratom capsules, expired hemp extract products, and equipment contaminated by roaches.
The inspection, conducted January 28, 2026, by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, produced 16 total violations and 46 stop-sale and stop-use orders. Not a single violation was corrected on site before the inspector left, with the exception of items that were physically discarded.
The store was operating without a valid 2026 food permit. That violation was marked as a repeat, meaning inspectors had flagged the same problem on a prior visit.
The kratom and hemp sections of the store generated the bulk of the orders. Kratom products in capsule form had no supplement facts panel on their packaging. Separately, kratom products on the shelf were not labeled with the concentration of 7-hydroxymitragynine in parts per million on a dry-weight basis, as required under a state emergency rule. The store had also not posted the required sign stating that kratom sales to anyone under 21 are prohibited and that proof of age is required. That sign was posted during the inspection.
The hemp extract products drew their own stack of violations. Inspectors found items without child-resistant packaging, without serving size and servings per container, without the name and place of business of the processor or distributor, and without batch numbers, expiration dates, or milligrams of each marketed cannabinoid per serving. Some hemp products intended for inhalation lacked the required statement "Not Intended For Ingestion, Do Not Eat." Others were designed to appeal to children, with product shapes or labels in the form of animals, humans, or cartoons. Several had already passed their expiration dates.
All of those products were voluntarily discarded.
The warewashing area produced two more violations. There was no stopper available for the three-compartment sink, which triggered a stop-use order on all food service equipment in that area. There was also no sanitizer test kit on hand to measure cleaning solution concentration.
The person in charge could not correctly answer questions related to preventing foodborne illness. The store had no written procedures for responding to a vomiting or diarrheal event. No certified food protection manager was on record.
What These Violations Mean
The roach finding at the counter and handwashing sink is the most acute concern for anyone who shopped at Orient Mobil in the weeks before this inspection. Live roaches in a retail food environment contaminate surfaces they cross, including food contact surfaces and the handwashing sink that employees use before handling products. The stop-use orders on both the counter area and the handwashing sink reflected that those surfaces were no longer considered safe for use until cleaned and sanitized.
The kratom and hemp labeling violations carry a different kind of risk. Florida's emergency rule on kratom requires that the concentration of 7-hydroxymitragynine, the compound in kratom associated with opioid-like effects, appear on the label in measurable units. Without that information, a customer has no way to know what dose they are taking. Products in capsule form without a supplement facts panel compound that problem. Inspectors issued stop-sale orders on those items under Florida's food safety statutes, treating them as misbranded products.
The hemp extract violations follow a similar logic. Products without expiration dates, batch numbers, or cannabinoid concentrations per serving cannot be traced if a consumer reports an adverse reaction. Products designed to look like cartoons or animals are specifically prohibited because they attract children to substances not intended for them. Child-resistant packaging requirements exist for the same reason.
The absence of a certified food protection manager and the person in charge's inability to answer basic foodborne illness questions are structural problems. They indicate that no one on staff at the time of the inspection had the training to recognize or prevent the conditions inspectors documented.
The Longer Record
The operating-without-a-valid-permit violation at Orient Mobil was marked as a repeat. That designation means FDACS had documented the same deficiency during a prior inspection. A store that has been told it lacks a valid permit and still has not corrected that status by the time inspectors return is not dealing with an oversight, it is dealing with a pattern.
The January 28 inspection was classified as an operating-without-a-valid-permit visit with a re-inspection required, meaning the state did not close out the case at the end of that visit. The store was required to address the outstanding violations before inspectors would return to evaluate compliance.
The stop-use order on all food service equipment in the warewashing area, combined with the roach-related stop-use orders on the counter and handwashing sink, left significant portions of the store's food handling infrastructure off-limits. None of those conditions were resolved during the inspection itself.
As of the January 28, 2026 inspection record, the operating-without-a-permit violation remained unresolved and a re-inspection had been scheduled.