For Heaven’s Sake, Man, Don’t Eat the Candy!!

By Alicia Dorr in News on Jun 30, 2006 3:30PM

First of all, how many people knew that there was a plant on the West Side that made delicious corporate chocolate delights? Maybe many of you. But we can’t see you raising your hands eagerly in the air, so you’ll just have to bear with us and all the other poor saps who like to laugh at others’ misfortunes (especially corporate otherses) while we get our kicks.

Fact: A factory producing M&Ms and Snickers Bars on the 2000 block of Oak Park was shut down yesterday for health code violations. It’s true; while the candies might not melt in your hand, they were apparently being produced, at least in this case, in sub-par conditions. The city’s Health Department shut the place down for having a fruit fly infestation, as well as easy ins for rats and “other insects.” Oh, yeah, and they just laid off 70 of their 400-some workers - big candy JERKS!

We don’t think a couple fruit flies’ll hurt anybody – in fact, we’re pretty sure there’s one floating in our drink right now – but, still. The factory failed to fix the problems they were cited for during previous inspections, and now they’ll pay. Oh, yes, this enormous corporate entity (or subsidiary, whatev) will pay fines up to $1,500, … Well, the report just ends with a comma, we don’t know what’s going on, really, but if it’s $1,500, we hope the Health Department can buy a nice 1988 Corsica for the city with the money. They are saying they hope to be back up and running within 24 hours.

Anyway, all of this is beside the point. The point is that they found mouse feces in the candy area. So, really, this has all been leading up to one crucial bit of advice: Keep away from the brown M&Ms for awhile.

Image via flakmag.com.