An Evans restaurant owner should have been in Weld County’s hot seat Wednesday morning for health code violations, but she sold the joint about a week before the meeting.

Eden Pho, 3230 23rd Ave., made it to the last stop on Weld’s restaurant punishment path. Hearings in front of the commissioners are a last-ditch effort, officials say.

The establishment racked up a handful of violations from December of last year through October of this year, according to county documents. Most of them were two recurring problems: Employees were storing raw animal protein – such as uncooked meat and eggs – over ready-to-eat food, and they were failing to keep certain foods cold enough. The restaurant was cited for each complaint four times in the past year.

The commissioners were slated to decide whether to shut the place down, either temporarily or permanently, or to continue working with the owners to get the place into compliance. Instead, they were forced to dismiss the hearing.

Eight days earlier, the owner sold Eden Pho for $1, clearing the restaurant’s slate.

Officials said situations like these highlight the need for reform in state-level restaurant regulations.

“Unfortunately, this loophole, at least in my mind, is putting the public at risk,” Commissioner Sean Conway said during the meeting. “We’re trying to … ensure public health and safety. This does not do it.”

When an owner sells a restaurant, inspectors go back to square one, said Environmental Health Director Trevor Jiricek.

“In short, you can’t revoke a license that they don’t have anymore,” he said.

Even getting to the point where revocation is on the table takes months. Inspectors have to see the same problem multiple times before taking the owner to a hearing in front of the commissioners, Jiricek said.

Eden Pho, for example, was inspected last December, in January, February, May, June and October, according to county documents. During that time, officials sent multiple letters laying out the restaurant’s citations.

Reached by phone after the meeting, an employee of the restaurant said no manager was available for comment and that he didn’t know the manager’s phone number. The owner’s phone number isn’t listed in property records.

In July, the health department brought the owners in to meet with them about the complaints, a practice Jiricek said is typical.

Employees tell the owner, “‘We keep seeing the same thing,'” he said. “‘We need you to fix it, because if you see it again, you’re going to end up in a hearing.'”

A few months after the meeting, Eden Pho got inspected twice, and county employees made the same citations again. Then they filed to get the hearing.

The hearing notice was sent on Dec. 9, and the restaurant’s sale documents were finalized Dec. 20.

This happens once or twice a year in Weld, Jiricek said. It happens next door in Larimer County as well.

“We certainly don’t have that happen very often, but it has happened in the past,” said Katie O’Donnell, the public information officer for Larimer’s health department.

It’s even been a problem across the nation, she said. Larimer has noticed because departments across the country are starting to make changes in permitting that allow inspection history to stick to a restaurant’s record, even if the owner or name changes.

Colorado health department officials realized people were pointing to a “perceived loophole” in 2014, according to state documents. They asked the attorney general to clarify the food safety law.

“Based upon the AG’s opinion, the department and its authorized agents have the authority … to continue an enforcement action against a retail food establishment when there is a change in ownership as long as the new owner operator of the facility has notice and an opportunity to comply,” the 2014 memo reads.

It specifically addresses the power to keep going with enforcement actions if officials believe the restaurant owners are trying to skirt state laws.

Health departments also can refuse to give the new owner its permit, it states.

The latter can be especially helpful, said Troy Huffman, who coordinates the state’s retail food team.

“It may actually place them in a much more aggressive position,” he said.

Weld officials want to find their own way to address the issue.

“This is a common practice,” Conway said. “People who get to this point … sell a restaurant to a relative or friend for a dollar, and we have to start anew. I don’t know what we need to do statutorily.”

He and Commissioner Julie Cozad serve in a statewide working group to look at food safety regulation, he said, and this highlighted the issue for them.

“I just hope we don’t get somebody sick,” Conway added.