A restaurant owner has been fined $40,000 after he was found guilty of being responsible for two children and their mother being serviced mosquito repellant instead of cranberry juice by a bar tender in 2024.
Michele Angiuli, 35, was charged after a family who ate at his since shutdown Italian restaurant called police after the incident that left their daughters aged 11 and 12 and their mum drinking a small amount of citronella.
Angiuli was sentenced over the incident on Tuesday, with Perth Magistrates Court hearing that it was his bar tender who accidently poured the drinks with insecticide instead of the juice they ordered, but because he did not have a food safety officer and because he had a disordered bar area, that he had “failed to act with due diligence”.
The parents of the victims confronted the bar man on the day of the incident and asked to see the bottle he had poured the drinks from which was labelled as citronella oil mixed with insect repellent.
The court heard they took the children to Perth Children’s Hospital to be checked out after their mouths were burning.
But Angiuli pleaded not guilty to the charges of failing to comply with food standard codes, knowingly selling a food that is unsafe and selling food that is not the nature or substance demanded by the purchaser.
He told the court during his trial that he could not be held responsible for the actions of his bar tender.
But the magistrate disagreed.
She told the court when delivering her decision on Tuesday that his venue, Mikys Italian Restaurant, “was not appropriately managed or compliant in a few areas”.
She also said Angiuli was not a “credible” or “reliable” witness, claiming that he lied to food safety officers and “attempted to cast the blame onto his employees”.
In deciding what penalty to impose on Angiuli, the magistrate cited a similar 2019 case where two young children were accidentally sold marijuana-laced brownies.
A separate case of a metal filing found in a Hungry Jacks hamburger was also used as a comparison.
Angiuli and his company were equally fined $20,000 and ordered to pay legal costs of almost $20,000.
The court heard he was forced to close the restaurant after “adverse publicity” following his arrest and “not for a good price” and no longer works in the food industry despite being “a passionate chef”.
“The children were young. But for the fact it was citronella and it tasted disgusting and they spat it out immediately, the consequences could have been more serious,” the magistrate told him.
