Trump's Mar-a-Lago club cited for serious violations: report

Washington: US President Donald Trump's exclusive club in Florida has been cited by state inspectors for several code violations that pose a serious threat to public health and safety, a media report has said.

The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Trump's Winter White House where the president hosts world leaders, is checked annually by the state of Florida.

The club, located on a beachfront property, was cited in November for two violations deemed high priority: the lack of smoke detectors capable of alerting the hearing impaired through flashing bright lights; and slabs of concrete missing from a staircase, exposing steel rebar that could cause someone to fall, Miami Herald reported.

"High priority lodging violations are those which could pose a direct or significant threat to the public health, safety, or welfare," the inspection code reads.

The November inspections of the club's two main kitchens, meanwhile, yielded a total 15 violations, the report said.

Among the no-no was the staff's failure to track the freshness of potentially hazardous foods, including curry sauce dated October 21 pulled from a freezer and improperly marked, milk stored at 49 degrees instead of the safe temperature of 41 degrees, and cases of hot dogs stored on the ground of the walk-in freezer, the report said.

Ten other noted violations were deemed less serious under Florida’s stringent food safety regulations, yet still damaging to the reputation of the upmarket club that charges a USD 200,000 initiation fee, and USD 14,000 a year for membership.

Trump had hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe at the Mar-a-Lago resort in 2017.