HANMI bans outside food to hotel banquets

The Hotel Association of Northern Mariana Islands yesterday banned guests from bringing food prepared outside hotel properties into banquet functions to prevent possible food poisoning incident.

At the same time, the 19-member hotel association will no longer allow food to be brought out of banquet functions as “leftovers”. However, the ban will not cover functions catered outside by hotels at a customers’ venue.

The announcement of this new policy by HANMI came after a food poisoning incident that downed 98 guests last June 17 in a wedding held at Saipan Grand Hotel.

Investigation showed that the mangrove crabs brought by the Nena and Taisacan families from the Federated States of Micronesia caused the food poisoning. The crabs came from Kosrae and the fish were from Chuuk.

Laboratory analysis on the food served by Saipan Grand Hotel during the Nena-Taisacan wedding reception tested negative for bacteria. But the food which were brought by these families were found to be contaminated with the bacteria vibrio parahaemolyticus and vibrio alginolyticus which are in the same class of cholera.

The Department of Public Health also found out that the crabs and the fish were cooked at around 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. on the day of the wedding and brought to the hotel at around 5:00 p.m.. in time for the reception. Hotel employees noted that the crabs were already emitting foul odor when brought to Saipan Grand Hotel.

“Proper food preparation by hotel personnel can be assured because each staff member in our F&B operations have undergone extensive training on how to properly handle and prepare food safely, and are certified food handlers by the Department of Public Health,” said Ron Sablan, HANMI president.

“However, when we allow banquet customers to bring in food they have prepared at home, our hotels have no way of assuring that proper handling procedures were followed and therefore safety becomes an issue,” he added.

Many hotel guests have previously attempted to accommodate local residents with their desire to add home-cooked touch to banquet events, particularly when it comes to indigenous delicacies that might not normally be in the hotel menu. It has also been a long-standing local tradition to wrap up and take home excess food.

However, since the leftovers may not be refrigerated right away, HANMI said this can be another source of contamination if not handled properly by the guests.

“Obviously, we want our guests to enjoy themselves and we’ve been as accommodating as possible in the past, but the bottom line is we need to ensure the safety of our guests,” said Mr. Sablan. “Our members have agreed that the best way to do this is to stop it in our of banquet functions. With proper coordination, proportions should be just right for the number of people in a party and leftovers should not be an issue.”

Mr. Sablan expressed hopes that the local community will still consider having banquets in hotels because of the beautiful surroundings and convenience.

“We just want to make sure that they enjoy themselves safely,” he said.

The CNMI government has already banned the entry of all types of food from FSM due to the outbreak of cholera in Pohnpei.