Whistleblower says exposing health code violations was the right thing to do

The man who exposed his former boss for committing several blatant health code violations at a local restaurant says he did so to help prevent others from repeating them.

Andrew Minnes, former manager of Carl’s Jr. at Gasoline Alley, took video he recorded of Jack Webb committing the violations to Alberta Health Services and CBC earlier this month. The violations which included Webb mixing sauce with his bare hand and improperly handling chicken were recorded during February and March of this year.

“Mainly because internally it never got dealt with,” Minnes said Wednesday from his home in Airdrie about why he went public. “The [business] partner wasn’t really interested and I had spoken briefly about it. I didn’t go into great detail with the corporate consultant and I hear that they were looking into it, but it had been quite a while the original tapes were from February. So I felt like it needed to be known and then lastly my suspicions about jacks attitude and I had a very clear view that I didn’t think the behaviour was going to be changed.”

Minnes quit his job with the company at the end of April over a dispute regarding a promotion, but says it played no role in his decision to go public with his video.

“It just wasn’t working out. There were obviously some business issues as well there, but I didn’t quit because of this,” he said. “Certainly working for a guy like that was a very frustrating experience in many different ways.”

11 a.m. start

National Day of Mourning ceremony goes Friday at Bower Ponds

40m ago

Please Be Mindful

Caution urged due to dry spring conditions in Red Deer

58m ago

'Inspiring Student Success'

Indigenous students enjoy learning about their culture at special conference

3h ago

The feedback Minnes says he’s received since his story was published by the CBC has been, for the most part, positive.

“I haven’t looked into much. I did go on my Facebook page just a little while ago and pretty much all I’m getting is positivity. I did speak to a very good friend of mine who’s’ a manager of Moxies, and everybody is telling me I did the right thing family friends and I haven’t heard any negativity from anybody, really.”

Minnes says he mainly wants the video and ensuing AHS action serves as an important wake up call.

“I just hope this keeps employers, franchisees and corporate people aware of what really goes on so if there is somebody out there doing these types of things, maybe this will scare them into stopping.

One thing Minnes doesn’t want it to be is an indictment of the entire Carl’s Jr. company, nor the staff that work at that the Gasoline Alley location, noting there’s an extensive training program that does an excellent job of showing employees what and what not to do.

“At the end of the day, you know they’re going to learn from this to not do this to take this stuff seriously and when somebody like myself who is managing your store brings it to your attention you know deal with it don’t brush it under the carpet don’t act like nothing happened lets deal with this.”