TAMPA, FL. On May 7, state inspectors walked into Westin Tampa Bay Aqua at 7627 Courtney Campbell Causeway and left behind a report citing six high-severity violations, including food sourced from unapproved suppliers, a failure to follow parasite destruction procedures, and at least one employee not reporting symptoms of illness. The restaurant was not closed.
The facility did receive an emergency closure the same day, but for a separate reason: no functioning warewashing facilities. Records show it reopened that same day. The six high-severity violations, the ones tied directly to food safety and customer health, did not trigger a closure.
What Inspectors Found
The illness-reporting violation is the one that tends to precede outbreaks. When a food worker who is sick, or who has symptoms consistent with norovirus, continues to handle food without disclosing that to management, the exposure is direct and immediate. A single ill employee at a busy hotel restaurant can infect dozens of guests before anyone connects the illnesses to a meal.
The food sourcing violation adds a separate layer of risk. Food from unapproved or unknown suppliers has not passed USDA or FDA inspection. If someone becomes sick after eating at Westin Tampa Bay Aqua, and the ingredient that caused the illness came from an unregistered supplier, there may be no supply chain record to trace.
The parasite destruction citation is specific to fish and certain meats. Proper parasite destruction requires either cooking to a safe internal temperature or freezing fish at a sufficiently low temperature for a defined period. The May 7 report indicates those procedures were not followed. Combined with the separate violation for food not cooked to required minimum temperatures, inspectors documented two distinct failure points in the cooking and preparation process.
The absence of a consumer advisory for raw or undercooked foods compounds the cooking temperature violation. Customers who are pregnant, elderly, or immunocompromised rely on those disclosures to make informed choices. Without one, they have no way of knowing a dish carries elevated risk.
What These Violations Mean
The illness-reporting failure is classified by state regulators as an outbreak enabler for a direct reason: norovirus spreads through contact with contaminated food, and a single infected food handler can transmit the virus to every plate they touch. Hotels are higher-risk environments than standalone restaurants because guests travel from different regions, often have no way to report illness back to the source, and may not connect symptoms to a specific meal until days later.
The parasite destruction and undercooking violations, cited together, describe a kitchen where fish or meat may be reaching guests without the thermal processing required to kill biological hazards. Anisakis, a parasitic roundworm found in raw or undercooked fish, causes severe abdominal pain and can require surgical removal. Trichinella, found in undercooked pork and wild game, causes muscle inflammation. Neither is detectable by sight or smell.
Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, cited as an intermediate violation, create bacterial biofilms on surfaces that contact food repeatedly throughout a service. Improper sanitizer concentration means those surfaces are not being effectively decontaminated between uses. Wiping cloths used incorrectly can transfer bacteria from one surface to another across a kitchen. These three intermediate violations, taken together, describe a sanitation environment where contamination can move freely.
The Longer Record
The May 7 inspection was not an outlier. State records show Westin Tampa Bay Aqua has been inspected 32 times and has accumulated 274 total violations across that history.
The inspection on April 8, 2024 produced 10 high-severity violations and 1 intermediate, the highest single-visit count in the recent record. The November 2023 inspection found 7 high-severity violations. The September 2024 inspection found 6, matching the May 7 count exactly. High-severity violations have appeared at every single inspection in the past three years without exception.
The facility has one prior emergency closure on record, the same-day warewashing closure from May 7. The pattern of high-severity violations across eight consecutive inspections, covering more than three years, shows no sustained improvement in the categories that carry the most direct risk to customers.
Still Open
The Westin Tampa Bay Aqua sits on the Courtney Campbell Causeway, a destination hotel drawing guests from across the Tampa Bay region and beyond. Travelers checking in for a waterfront meal on May 7 had no way of knowing that inspectors had documented, among other things, food from unverified sources, a cooking process that did not meet minimum temperature requirements, and an employee who had not reported illness symptoms.
The warewashing problem was serious enough to close the kitchen for part of that day. The six high-severity violations were not.