Pennsylvania Marriott Cited For Dirty Silverware & Mold After 200+ People Sickened

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It doesn’t take a whole lot of searching to find restaurants that have health and safety violations. Most are basic violations that can be easily fixed, such as not having a “Employees must wash hands before returning to work” in the restroom. Some can be an intermediate priority, such as a food-contact surface being soiled with food debris, mold-like substance or slime. Or there can be high priority issues that can shut a restaurant down until fixed, such as live insects in the kitchen, inappropriate storage of food, etc.

People might not think about catering services as restaurants but, of course, they have to comply with the same safety rules as any other facility that serves food.

Along those lines, the Pittsburgh Airport Marriott hotel recently faced multiple violations after at least three large events left at least 200 people sick with gastrointestinal illnesses that appeared to be norovirus.

Norovirus is very contagious and symptoms typically include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and some stomach cramping. It can contaminate the food that’s being prepared, so that’s typically how the virus is spread – either eating food that may have been prepared by somebody who’s contagious with the virus or having contact with the environment that is contaminated with it.

Following an event held at the hotel on April 2nd, one family told KDKA that about 70 people at their bridal shower were sick with G.I. symptoms within 36 hours of their event. A wedding held on the same day wound up with roughly 80 of the 155 people in attendance becoming ill.

“Everybody’s just going to remember our wedding as the wedding that everybody got sick at,” said the bride. “I mean, people were thinking they were on their deathbed. Like, that’s how bad it got.”

KDKA also reported that several students who attended a football banquet on April 3rd also experienced severe gastrointestinal illness.

With so many illnesses reported in such a short period of time, on April 5, an Allegheny County Health Department report revealed that an inspector found cleaning and sanitizing violations such as dirty silverware and mold in the vegetable walk-in cooler. It was also reported that a soap dispenser was out of batteries, which led to employees being unable to properly wash their hands.

The Marriott told KDKA it did a deep cleaning to “cover both the norovirus and coronavirus.” They also notified the health department to make them aware of their updates.

A reinspection was done on April 7th. The report from the inspection done that date showed no more high-level violations.

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