An Ontario maple syrup producer has been slapped with fines by provincial food inspection officials who don’t want a sample coming to hand in an old whiskey bottle.
Carl Spencer, a maple syrup producer from Tara, Ont., about 25 km west of Owen Sound, pled guilty in Ontario’s Court of Justice on Dec. 21 to one count under the province’s Farm Products Grades and Sales Act.
Spencer has been fined $350 plus a victim fine surcharge over an incident on June 2 at his stand at Tara’s Keady Market, in which two samples were obtained for “routine testing,” the province said.
One of the samples was improperly contained in an “old, 1.14-litre whiskey liquor bottle,” the province said.
Laura Schultz of nearby Desboro pled guilty in the same Owen Sound court the previous week, Dec. 14, to one count under the same Act.
Schultz, the province said, “obstructed an inspector in the course of his legislated duties” by refusing to let him collect syrup samples for quality assurance testing.
Schultz was fined $195 plus the victim fine surcharge.
