SUNRISE, FL. Back in February 2026, a state inspector walked into a Sunrise convenience store and found that the person in charge could not correctly answer questions about what to do if an employee got sick, had no written plan for handling a vomit or diarrheal event on the premises, and could not demonstrate that food workers had ever been told, in any verifiable way, which illnesses they were required to report.
Those three findings, all documented at Surma Oil Inc on February 25, 2026, were the most serious of seven total violations recorded during the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspection of the Sunrise convenience store.
What Inspectors Found
The three most serious violations were all classified as Priority Foundation, a designation FDACS uses for requirements that support the foundation of safe food handling. The inspector noted that the person in charge "does not correctly respond to question related to employee health" and that the store had no written procedures for responding to a vomit or diarrheal event anywhere on the premises. A guidance document was provided to the store during the inspection.
The illness-reporting failure was equally direct. The inspector wrote that the person in charge "was unable to ensure that food employees were informed in a verifiable manner to report their illness and or symptoms relate to diseases that are transmissible through food." An employee health guide was also provided on site.
The remaining four violations were basic-level citations. In the backroom employee restroom, no handwashing sign was posted, though one was put up during the inspection. That same restroom lacked a covered trash receptacle. At the retail coffee bar, coffee stirs were set out for customer self-service without any protective packaging. And in the walk-in cooler, the inspector documented an accumulation of dust on the vent and slide trays.
None of the seven violations were corrected on site, with the exception of the handwashing sign, which the inspector noted was posted during the visit.
What These Violations Mean
The three Priority Foundation violations tied to employee health are not paperwork problems. They describe a store where, as of February 2026, workers had not been told in any documented way which illnesses, symptoms, or diagnoses require them to stay home or report to a supervisor. Norovirus, hepatitis A, Salmonella typhi, and several other pathogens can be transmitted directly from a sick food handler to a customer through contaminated food or surfaces. Without a functioning reporting system, a sick employee has no clear instruction to stay away from work.
The absence of a written vomit and diarrheal event cleanup plan compounds that risk. Norovirus in particular spreads rapidly through aerosolized particles from vomiting, and a retail food environment without a documented response procedure has no standard way to contain contamination, protect other customers, or protect the employees doing the cleanup. The inspector provided guidance materials during the visit, but the store had none of its own before that point.
The unpackaged coffee stirs at the self-service bar are a lower-severity finding, but they represent a direct-contact exposure point. Customers reaching into an open container of stirs touch items that other customers will then place in their mouths. Original protective packaging exists specifically to prevent that chain of contact.
The Longer Record
The February 2026 inspection was only the second FDACS inspection on record at this location. The prior visit, a focused inspection conducted on October 24, 2024, recorded zero violations. That clean record makes the seven violations documented four months later a notable shift, particularly the three Priority Foundation failures, which suggest gaps in management-level food safety training rather than isolated facility maintenance issues.
A focused inspection, by design, examines a narrower scope of operations than a full sanitation inspection. The October 2024 visit may not have evaluated the employee health policies that the February 2026 inspection flagged. That distinction matters when reading the two records side by side.
None of the February violations were marked as repeats, meaning the specific citations had not been documented in a prior inspection at this location. But the Priority Foundation failures around employee illness reporting and management knowledge are not the kind of violations that develop overnight. They reflect the absence of systems that should have been in place from the start.
The dust accumulation on the walk-in cooler vent and slide trays, a basic-level finding, remained unresolved at the time the inspector left the store.