A York café has been forced to close immediately on public safety grounds.
Mr Tea, on the corner of Coney Street and St Helen’s Square, has an “active vermin infestation.”
City of York Council successfully applied to York Magistrates’ Court to shut the café, which specialises in bubble tea, bao buns and Taiwanese snacks.
The corner building is closed and shuttered today.
A notice on the window says the council applied for a Hygiene Emergency Prohibition Order against the owners of Mr Tea, Longsky Ltd, based on Beecroft Street in Leeds.
The court granted the order last Thursday after hearing that a food hygiene inspection on 27 January revealed “an imminent risk of injury to health, namely there was an active vermin infestation”.
Use of the premises as a food business “is prohibited until such time as City of York Council issue a certificate to the effect that they are satisfied that the food business operator has taken sufficient measures to secure that there is no longer an imminent risk of injury to health in respect to the food business at this premises,” the notice says.
The building was home to Burgin’s Perfumery for 137 until it closed in 2017. It reopened as the Chatime bubble tea cafe in 2020, before it became Mr Tea.
