NOKOMIS, FL. Inspectors visiting Pelican Alley at 1009 W Albee Rd on September 24 found that the restaurant was not following parasite destruction procedures for its fish, a failure that means customers could have been served seafood harboring live parasites including Anisakis and tapeworm. The facility collected nine high-severity violations that day. It was not closed.
The same inspection also triggered an emergency closure, but not for the parasite issue. State records show the closure was ordered for rodent activity. The restaurant reopened the following day, September 25, and the inspection record for that date shows four additional high-severity violations still on the books.
What Inspectors Found
The nine high-severity violations spanned nearly every layer of food safety practice. Beyond the parasite failure, inspectors found toxic chemicals stored or labeled improperly, meaning cleaning agents or other hazardous substances were kept in proximity to food without adequate safeguards against contamination or mix-up.
Food contact surfaces were not properly cleaned or sanitized. Cutting boards, prep surfaces, and similar equipment that touches food directly are among the most reliable pathways for bacteria to move from one food item to another, and the citation indicates that pathway was not being controlled.
Inspectors also documented that time as a public health control was not being used properly. When a restaurant opts to track time rather than temperature to keep food safe, it accepts responsibility for removing food from service within a strict window. The violation means food was sitting in the temperature danger zone, between 41 and 135 degrees, without that clock being reliably kept.
The restaurant had no written employee health policy and at least one employee was not reporting illness symptoms. Inspectors also cited both inadequate handwashing facilities and improper handwashing technique, a combination that means the physical infrastructure for hygiene was deficient and the technique being used was insufficient even where facilities existed. The person in charge was either absent or not actively supervising.
The two intermediate violations included improper sewage or wastewater disposal, which creates fecal contamination risk throughout a facility, and the reuse of single-use items.
What These Violations Mean
The parasite destruction citation is one of the most direct risks in this inspection record. Florida seafood restaurants are required to freeze fish at specific temperatures for specific durations before serving it raw or undercooked, because that process kills parasites that survive normal refrigeration. When that step is skipped or done improperly, a customer eating sushi, ceviche, lightly seared fish, or any undercooked seafood can ingest a live Anisakis larva or tapeworm. Symptoms can include severe abdominal pain, nausea, and in some cases require surgical removal of the parasite.
The employee health policy failures compound the risk from handwashing failures. Without a written policy, workers have no formal instruction on when to stay home or report symptoms, and without adequate handwashing infrastructure, even a worker trying to do the right thing cannot fully remove pathogens from their hands. Norovirus, which causes the majority of foodborne illness outbreaks in restaurant settings, spreads most efficiently through exactly this combination: an ill or recently ill worker with inadequate handwashing.
The toxic chemical violation is a separate and acute risk. Improperly stored or unlabeled chemicals near food preparation areas can contaminate food directly, and mislabeled containers have caused poisoning incidents when chemicals were mistaken for food-safe substances.
The absence of an active person in charge ties these violations together. CDC data links establishments without active managerial control to three times the rate of critical violations. On September 24 at Pelican Alley, inspectors found that failure at the top of a nine-violation list.
The Longer Record
Pelican Alley: Inspection Pattern, 2024-2026
Pelican Alley has 24 inspections on record and 260 total violations accumulated across those visits. The February 2024 inspection produced 10 high-severity violations and 4 intermediate ones, the worst single-visit total in the facility's recorded history. Six months later, in August 2024, inspectors returned and found 6 high-severity violations. Six months after that, in December 2024, the count was 6 high-severity violations again.
The pattern did not improve in 2026. The May inspection produced 5 high-severity violations. The September 24 inspection produced 9, along with the emergency closure for rodent activity. The September 25 follow-up, conducted after the rodent closure was lifted, still showed 4 high-severity violations. The October 7 inspection showed 6 high-severity violations and 3 intermediate ones.
That October visit came 13 days after the inspection that is the subject of this article.
Pelican Alley was not emergency-closed on September 24 for any of its nine high-severity violations. It was closed that day for the rodent finding, reopened the next morning, and has continued operating. The nine violations, including the parasite destruction failure and the toxic chemical mishandling, were documented, logged, and left behind in the state's inspection database.
