Chap. 265.—An ACT to enact into law the rules and regulations of the dairy and
food commissioner fixed and established by and with the approval of the
board of agriculture and immigration, concerning food and food products and
the sanitation of all places used in the manufacture, packing, storing, sale or
distribution of food or food products. (H B 39]

Approved March 15, 1924.

1. Beit enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That the rules
and regulations of the dairy and food commissioner fixed and estab-
lished by and with the approval of the board of agriculture and immi-
gration be, and they are hereby, enacted into law, as follows: |

2. (1) Every building, room, basement or cellar occupied or used
as a bakery, confectionery, cannery, packing house, slaughter house,
dairy, creamery, cheese factory, restaurant, hotel, grocery, meat market
or other place or apartment used for the preparation for sale, manu-
facture, packing, storage, sale or distribution of any food or food prod-
ucts shall be properly lighted, drained, plumbed and ventilated, and
conducted with due regard for the purity and wholesomeness of the
food therein produced, and with strict regard to the influence of such
conditions upon the health of the operatives, employees, clerks or other
persons therein employed. The term ‘‘food’’ as used herein shall in-
clude all articles used for food, drink, confectionery or condiment,
whether simple, mixed or compound, and all substances or ingredients
used in the preparation thereof. |

(2) The floors, side walls, ceilings, furniture, receptacles, imple-
ments and machinery of every establishment where food is manufac-
tured, packed, stored, sold or distributed, shall at all times be kept in
a clean, healthful and sanitary condition.

(3) Food in the process of manufacture, preparation, packing,
storing, sale, or distribution, must be securely protected from flies, dust,
dirt, and as far as may be necessary, from all other foreign or injurious
contamination.

(4) All refuse, dirt and the waste products subject to decomposi-
tion and fermentation incident to the manufacture, preparation, pack-
ing, storing, selling and distributing of food, must be removed from the
premises daily.

(5) All trucks, trays, boxes, baskets, buckets, and other receptacles,
chutes, platforms, racks, tables, shelves and all knives, saws, cleavers,
and other utensils and machinery used in moving, handling, cutting,
chopping, mixing, canning and all other process, must be thoroughly
cleaned daily.

(6) The clothing of operatives, employees, clerks, or other persons
must be clean.

(7) The side walls and ceilings of every bakery, confectionery,
creamery, cheese factory, hotel and restaurant kitchen, shall be well
plastered, wainscoted, or ceiled, preferably with metal or lumber, and
shall be kept oil-painted or well limewashed, and all interior woodwork
in every bakery, confectionery, creamery, cheese factory, hotel and res-
taurant kitchen shall be kept washed and clean with soap and water;
and every building, room, basement or cellar occupied or used for the
preparation, manufacture, packing, storage, sale or distribution of food,
shall have an impermeable floor made of cement or tile, laid in cement,
brick, wood or other suitable non-absorbent material which can be
flushed and washed clean with water.

(8) The doors, windows and other openings of every food-producing
or distributing establishment during the fly season, shall be fitted with
self-closing screen doors and wire window screens of not coarser than
fourteen-mesh wire gauze.

(9) The sleeping place or places for persons employed in such es-
tablishments shall be separate and apart from the room in which food
products are manufactured or stored, and no person shall sleep in any
place where flour, meal or the manufactured products thereof are man-
ufactured or stored.

(10) No domestic animals, except cats, shall be permitted to re-
main in any room used for the manufacture or storage of food products.

(11) No employer shall knowingly permit, require or suffer any
person to work in a bakery, confectionery, cheese factory, dairy, cream-
ery, hotel or restaurant kitchen, who is afflicted with any contagious or
infectious disease, or with any skin disease.

(12) Cuspidors shall be provided by the owner or operator of each
work-room of every bakery, confectionery, or other food-producing es-
tablishment, and no employee or other person shall expectorate on the
floors or side walls of any such bakery, confectionery, creamery, or other
food-producing establishment. Plain notice forbidding such expector-
ation shall be posted in every such place.

Smoking in workrooms of food-producing establishments is inhib-
ited.

(13) Every place in which human foods are manufactured, pre-
pared, exposed or offered for sale shall be provided with a convenient
washroom and toilet of sanitary construction, but such toilet shall be
entirely separate and apart from any room used for the manufacture or
storage of food products.

(14) Delivery wagons used in the delivery of products of bakeries
and confectioneries shall be covered wagons, closed at both ends.

(15) Delivery wagons used to transport or deliver meats or meat
products must be provided with tarpaulins of sufficient size to cover the
entire body of wagon when loaded, and the tarpaulins shall be carefully
spread over loads of meats and meat products unprotected by boxes or
casings when in transit through the streets of the cities and towns of
the State.

(16) The rooms or compartments in which meat or meat-food prod-
ucts are prepared, cured, stored, packed, or otherwise handled, shall
be free from odors from toilets, catch basins, tank rooms, casing de-
partments, hide cellars, nor shall hides be stored in such rooms.

(17) All bottles, jugs, barrels and containers used in the packing,
storage, distribution and sale of drink products must be sterilized with
boiling water or live steam before filling the same.

(18) The soaking of shucked oysters or clams in fresh water before
shipment is inhibited, but may be washed in fresh water.

(19) All foods offered or exposed for sale in Virginia must be
branded or labeled in English on the principal label, in type not smaller
than eight point caps, and on same kind of background as the word or
words with which they are associated; provided, in case the size of the
package will not permit the use of eight point cap type, the size of the
type may be reduced proportionately so as to truly and clearly set forth
the contents of the material so branded or labeled, and if such foods
are artificial, imitation, compound, blended or adulterated, the words
“artificial,” “imitation,” ‘‘compound,” “blended,” ‘adulterated,’ or
such permitted qualifying term as may be used, must immediately pre-
cede or follow the word or words they modify, and be shown in type
equally as prominent as is the name of the article simulated.

The information required to be shown on the containers of beverages
or drink products may appear either on a label pasted on the container
or on the crown cap on the container. The entire information required
must appear either on the label pasted on the container or on the crown,
it may not be shown In part on either or both, nor may it be shown blown
in the bottle.

(20) The term vinegar, when used without qualification, means
cider vinegar, and the sale of any other kind under the name of vinegar,
unless the name be qualified, will be held to be misbranded. Vinegars,
recognized in the United States standards, are classified as follows:

One, cider vinegar, apple vinegar. Two, wine vinegar, grape vin-
egar. Three, malt vinegar. Four, sugar vinegar. Five, glucose vin-
egar. Six, spirit vinegar, distilled vinegar, grain vinegar.

vinegar offered or exposed for sale shall be kept up to the recog-
nized standards of the United States department of agriculture, which
are adopted as the standards of this State, and must be labeled true
to name and be free from foreign coloring matter.

(21) The use of saccharine in food products manufactured, offered
or exposed for sale in this State, is inhibited.

3. Any person, firm, corporation or association violating any of the
provisions of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon con-
viction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five
nor more than three hundred dollars.