'Grouper' costs restaurants
By CURTIS KRUEGER
Published March 10, 2007
Three Tampa Bay area restaurants have agreed to make sure they don't sell any more "grouper" that really isn't grouper.
The restaurants did not admit to doing anything wrong but will pay the state between $2,500 and $5,000 each.
"If they're not able to serve grouper they need to inform customers what they're actually purchasing," said Sandi Copes, spokeswoman for the Florida attorney general. "It's to make consumers actually know what they're purchasing when they purchase it."
The three restaurants are: La Teresita in Tampa, which used hake instead of grouper; Woody's Waterfront Cafe in St. Pete Beach, which sold emperor fish in place of its "grouper grope sandwich"; and the Casual Clam in St. Petersburg, which sold a grouper sandwich that turned out to be bream, according to the Attorney General's Office.
Managers at La Teresita and the Casual Clam could not be reached.
"No comment," said a man who answered the phone at Woody's.
La Teresita agreed to pay $4,500 to reimburse the state for the costs of the investigation, plus $500 as a donation to the lab that conducted the tests. The other two restaurants each agreed to make $2,000 reimbursements plus the $500 donations. The costs for La Teresita were higher because the investigation took longer in that case, Copes said.
The Attorney General's Office is continuing to negotiate with 14 other restaurants that are alleged to have sold "grouper" that actually turned out to be something else.
Some restaurants previously have said they ordered and paid for grouper from their suppliers and didn't know how they wound up with something else.
But Attorney General Bill McCollum called the sales "a prime example of baiting-and-switching."
Investigators purchased fish at 24 restaurants and sent samples to a lab for testing. Of the 24, results showed 17 were not grouper.
The state investigation followed a story in the St. Petersburg Times that showed fish sold as grouper at several local restaurants actually was something else.
The restaurants that have not yet reached agreements with the Attorney General's Office include two Hooters restaurants in Tampa and one in Clearwater; and Winghouse restaurants in New Port Richey, Largo, Lakeland and Tampa.
Other restaurants the state is continuing to negotiate with include: Fish Tales, Sunshine City Grill, and the 4th Street Shrimp Store in St. Petersburg; the Seminole Family Restaurant in Seminole; Coquina Blue Grill & Bar and the Green Iguana Bar & Grill in Tampa; and the Oaks in Brandon.