WEST PALM BEACH, FL. Back in December 2025, when Trap Starz Llc sat for its preoperational inspection, the state found a retail bakery preparing to open its doors without a certified food protection manager on staff and without anyone who could correctly answer basic questions about preventing foodborne illness.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services conducted the inspection on December 23, 2025. Inspectors documented four violations, three of them classified at the priority foundation level, meaning they reflect failures in the management systems that are supposed to keep a food establishment safe before a single product reaches a customer.
What Inspectors Found
The inspector's notes on the person in charge were direct: "Person in charge did not answer questions related to foodborne illnesses and symptoms." That finding matters because the person running the floor at any food establishment is supposed to be the first line of defense against contaminated product reaching shoppers.
The inspector also noted they were "unable to verify that food employees are aware of their responsibility to report diagnosis and symptoms related to foodborne illnesses." A reporting agreement was provided on site.
The fourth violation addressed written procedures for handling vomit and diarrhea cleanup. The inspector noted the establishment had none. An industry document was provided during the visit.
None of the four violations were corrected on site.
What These Violations Mean
The three priority foundation violations at Trap Starz Llc are not paperwork problems. They describe a gap in the foundational layer of food safety management at a retail bakery that was about to begin selling directly to the public.
A certified food protection manager is required because someone at the establishment needs to have demonstrated, through a standardized exam, that they understand how contamination happens and how to stop it. The inspector noted that Trap Starz Llc had no such person and provided a link to certification programs.
The failure to verify that employees understood their obligation to report illness is directly connected to transmission risk. If a worker comes in with norovirus or salmonella and no one has told them they are required to report it and stay home, that worker handles dough, handles packaging, handles surfaces that customers will touch or that will contact food they buy and eat. The reporting agreement handed over during the inspection is the starting point, not the finish line.
The absence of written vomit and diarrhea cleanup procedures may sound like a minor administrative gap. It is not. Norovirus survives on surfaces and spreads aggressively. A retail bakery without a documented cleanup protocol has no standard response when a contamination event happens on the floor or near food prep areas.
The Longer Record
The December 23 inspection was not the beginning of Trap Starz Llc's inspection history, and it was not the end. State records show the location has been inspected eight additional times, with the most recent visits occurring in February 2026.
The bakery had a prior preoperational inspection on September 23, 2025, which turned up one violation marked as a repeat. That repeat designation means inspectors had flagged the same issue at an earlier visit. A sanitation inspection the following day, September 22, found no violations.
Two inspections in October 2025 each produced a single violation. Neither was marked repeat.
Then came December 23, with four violations and no corrections made on site. A follow-up preoperational inspection on February 24, 2026 again found four violations. The same date produced a second inspection with zero violations, suggesting some issues were addressed between visits.
By February 26, 2026, two separate inspections were conducted. One found two violations; the other found none, and both resulted in a finding that the facility met sanitation inspection requirements.
The pattern across nine inspections is one of a facility that clears the bar on some visits and stumbles on others, with the most serious knowledge and management failures appearing at the preoperational stage in December 2025, when none of the violations were resolved before the inspector left.
Unresolved at the Close of Inspection
When the December 23 inspection ended, the person in charge at Trap Starz Llc still had not demonstrated knowledge of foodborne illness prevention. Employees had still not been verified as aware of their reporting obligations. The bakery still had no written procedures for handling a contamination event on the floor.
The inspector provided documents and resources at each turn. Whether those materials translated into corrected practices before the next customer walked through the door is not reflected in the December record.