SOUTH WINDSOR — Carla’s Pasta owes $300,591.91 in back taxes to the town, but is protected from paying or incurring fines because the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February as it struggled to meet tens of millions of dollars in debt obligations.
The 43-year-old family-owned business has been hurt by the large number of restaurants that closed during the pandemic, according to a Feb. 8 petition filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford.
Town Manager Michael Maniscalco said other than the taxes the factory owes, the owners are in compliance with all building department codes and regulations, and all the company’s permit applications for its expansion have been finalized.
The company built a 70,000-square-foot addition to its 50 Talbot Lane facility in 2017, and at the time added as many as 60 employees to its staff of about 300.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state Department of Consumer Protection’s Food and Standards Division are now investigating a March 22 accident at the factory where an employee sustained life-threatening injuries after getting his hand and half of his arm caught in machinery there.
It took more than two hours to free the 32-year-old Middlefield man, who was flown to Hartford Hospital by Life Star and required intensive surgery, police said.
No determination has yet been made on the company’s bankruptcy filing as it has another court hearing today.
Kaitlyn Krasselt, a spokeswoman for the Department of Consumer Protection, said Carla’s Pasta holds two licenses with the department — a bakery license and a weighing and measuring device license. She has said the agency opened an investigation into the company following news reports about the accident.
She said other than a small recall of basil in 2017, there have been no complaints or issues recorded by DCP’s Food and Standards Division, which regulates food safety and inspects the company annually.
OSHA, however, has fined the company for safety violations.
The Journal Inquirer found that Carla’s Pasta was cited for 14 safety violations, nine of them serious, on Feb. 27, 2017, according to OSHA inspection reports. The company paid $35,000 for safety violations and $4,500 for health violations that included, among other things, lacking emergency stop controls on a conveyor; inadequate guards on a saw, a cutter, and a grinder; lack of training and protective equipment for employees; deficiencies in electrical wiring; fall hazards; and a blocked exit from a freezer.
Edmund Fitzgerald, a spokesman for OSHA, has said the company fixed the cited hazards and paid the fines, which led the agency to close the case on April 24, 2017.
Carla’s Pasta began as a small home-based shop in Manchester in 1978 and moved into a Progress Drive building in town four years later. In 1995, the company opened a second building on Park Avenue in East Hartford, before making the move to much larger South Windsor quarters in 2002. In 2018, the company completed the 70,000-square foot addition to its South Windsor facility.
April 08, 2021 at 10:30PM
https://ift.tt/3dLw9XV
Carla's Pasta owes South Windsor over $300K in back taxes - Journal Inquirer
https://ift.tt/31oM9uv
Pasta
No comments:
Post a Comment