By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff reporter
One year has passed after the law banning the reuse of leftover side dishes took effect, but the authority's inspections have already became nominal, exposing only 59 restaurants for violations.
According to a report released by Seoul City on Wednesday, the restaurants were caught serving food left by one customer to another despite the revision of the Food Sanitation Law in July 2009.
Among those exposed, 54 were caught during a crackdown from last October to December and only five were caught during random inspections in nine months following.
This is only 2 percent of the total eateries caught and 0.1 percent of those inspected.
Other violations included not completing health checks, storing expired food and poor sanitation.
However, Seoul City does not plan to reinforce the crackdown on the reuse of leftover food this year.
"It is difficult to disclose the actual instance of serving leftover food again unless we watch them closely during busy hours which might interfere with their business," a city official said. "We are thinking of ways not to cause inconvenience to restaurant owners."
The city also said they are trying to urge a shift in the awareness of business owners not to reuse leftover food. "We have been campaigning steadily from last year," he added.
Local restaurant owners also admitted the difficulty involving raids to catch restaurants reusing food uneaten by customers.
"We don't use leftover food, but it is hard to actually catch those who do unless the squads watch over the eateries for hours," a restaurant owner in central Seoul who declined to give his name said. "The best they can do is to rely on the restaurant owners to be honest."