PACOIMA : Market Operator Fined Over Accident

A Pacoima food market operator was ordered to donate $3,000 worth of food Friday after he pleaded no contest to violating safety regulations after an employee lost his right hand and forearm in a hamburger grinder, the Los Angeles city attorney’s office said.

Municipal Judge Leland Harris ordered Kevin C. Choi, 38, of La Crescenta, to pay $1,350 in fines and placed him on 18 months summary probation, including a condition that he donate the non-perishable food to a charity designated by the city attorney’s office by March 23, said Mike Qualls, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office. Choi operates Price Food Market at 9772 Laurel Canyon Blvd.

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. Investigators from Cal/OSHA, the state safety agency, later determined that a 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.