IN Lahore and Peshawar, restaurants have received some unwanted guests in recent days. These nosey, curious visitors, armed with a governmental licence of inspection, have been on a spree where they have sealed eateries and imposed fines for eateries’ failure to maintain the minimum expected standards of hygiene, freshness, etc, in the conduct of business.

The drive has drawn some support, and if there is a surprising element somewhere in the affair, it relates to the restaurant owners’ inability to anticipate and react to the crackdown against them.

In the Punjab capital where the campaign to clean up the mess at the eateries is most pronounced, the Lahore Restaurant’s Owners have, finally, decided to challenge the burgeoning — by some accounts intimidating — presence of the Punjab Food Authority (PFA).

Know more: Eateries body comes up with its version

The restaurant owners have built their counter-argument around familiar themes. They point out how officials can often overstep under the cover of the authority invested in them; and since this is about food and Lahore, the refrain about how ‘negative’ action can earn a bad name for the city’s culture has been easily invoked.

Yet more raids continue to be reported and the officials speak of expanding the PFA’s raid-and-seal operations to other towns in the province.

There is considerable merit in the urge to clean up the act at restaurants. The images and the stories emanating from these raids at eateries add to this urgency and to the calls for carrying on with the effort until some kind of basic hygiene and other standards are established, making eating out a less hazardous event than it appears now.

But most popular jobs must also entail the strictest adherence to the principles of fairness and objectivity by the officials assigned to perform them.

The campaign must continue and at the same time an awareness programme must also be undertaken to apprise restaurant managers about their responsibilities.

The aim should not be to embarrass or humiliate them — so long as they are keeping it nice and clean.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2015

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