The Fairview Pointe-Claire shopping centre says it’s addressing a bug problem after a West Island woman found several beetle-like insects on a food counter on Monday.

Jennifer Afrait had just ordered her meal at the Kim Chi Korean restaurant stand when she noticed not one, not two, but seven or eight bugs scurrying around the counter near a food preparation area.

Afrait took a photo of one of the bugs and sent it to her husband, Brad Cohen.

Brad Cohen spoke to CBC Daybreak about the bugs his wife found at Fairview. (Nathalie Walther/CBC)

CBC Daybreak spoke with Cohen on Friday morning about the experience.

He told host Mike Finnerty his wife successfully got her money back -- but that when she mentioned the bug problem, the cashier allegedly told her, “This is a problem here,” referring to the entire food court.

A member of the food court personnel then reportedly came over and began spraying the bugs with window cleaner.

“Not the reaction we really expected,” Cohen said.

He and Afrait can’t be 100 per cent certain of the type of bugs they were, but they can take a guess.

“Look, we don’t want to assume what it was, but I mean, it looked like a beetle and it was quite large. You can only just guess that, you know related to food, it’s possible that it could be a cockroach,” Cohen said.

Company, mall respond

MTY Group owns Kim Chi. Its CFO, Eric Lefebvre, told Daybreak that a food safety inspector visited the store’s Fairview location and did in fact find bugs.

He told CBC the “store has an effective pest control program in place and that our hygiene standard are applied to this location.”

However, Lefebvre said, “The stores are open spaces and pest can easily cross from one location to another. It really needs to be a joint effort between all the tenants and the landlord to have the problem solved.”

Fairview Pointe-Claire general manager Christian Vezina issued a statement to Daybreak via email:

"Fairview Pointe-Claire takes health and safety issues very seriously and we strive to maintain a high standard of cleanliness and safety at our property. We conduct regular, proactive inspections of the property to ensure a pleasant experience for our shoppers… Pest control is a reality of the food service industry and, like any property, we take this responsibility seriously. As soon as we learned of a recent complaint, we contacted our pest control provider and initiated steps to address the situation.”

Cohen said he'd probably wait a few weeks for the problem to be addressed before eating at Fairview's food court again.