Stomach it! Restaurants hiding kitchens to be shut

Prince Mansour bin Miteb, minister of municipal and rural affairs, has ordered mayoralties and municipalities countrywide to close down restaurants and eateries that do not make their kitchens visible to customers.
The ministry’s health and safety regulations state that restaurants with a wall separating the dining area from the kitchen should ensure that the lower part of it does not exceed 1 meter in height, and that the upper portion is a glass partition, which allows customers to see how their food is prepared. The prince stressed that restaurants that had been given warnings would face closure if they failed to comply with the regulations within the given deadline.
The ministry has also called on mayors and municipality heads to oversee the process. The ministry’s undersecretary would be responsible for regular inspections to ensure that restaurants violating the regulations are closed.
Hamad bin Saeed Al-Omar, spokesman of the ministry, said that the prince’s decision comes in the wake of repeated calls for action by several citizens on the social media.
The directives have included the deployment of inspection teams to check that food joints are complying with the regulations. However, some restaurants have continued to violate regulations by pasting photos or ads of their food on glass windows of their kitchens, making it impossible for customers to see into them.