Grocer Faces Charge in Work Injury

The operator of a Pacoima food market was charged Friday with violating safety regulations after an employee lost his right hand and forearm in a hamburger grinder, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office said.

Named in the criminal complaint was Kevin C. Choi, 38, of La Crescenta, who operates Price Food Market at 9772 Laurel Canyon Blvd., said Mike Qualls, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office.

The charges stem from a Jan. 19 incident in which employee Enrique Solis, 21, of North Hollywood was using a power-driven meat grinder to make hamburger at the market, Qualls said. Solis was pushing meat into the top of the grinder when he slipped and fell into the machine, which severed his right hand and forearm before he could turn it off.

Investigators from Cal/OSHA, the state safety agency, later determined the safety device that would have prevented the accident had been missing for several weeks, Qualls said. A meat manager at the store told authorities he had reported the missing guard to Choi more than a month before the accident, but that he never replaced it.

Choi was charged Friday in Los Angeles Municipal Court with one count of knowingly violating safety regulations that resulted in the injury of an employee and one count of knowingly violating a safety regulation pertaining to the operation of a power-driven food grinder, Qualls said.

Choi is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 3 in Los Angeles Municipal Court, Qualls said. If convicted on both counts, Choi would face a maximum sentence of two years in prison and an $11,000 fine.