Safety Violations

On the eve of a major enforcement campaign against scofflaw landlords who violate city and state lead paint safety regulations, officials reported yesterday that prosecutions have already more than doubled in the past year. Jane Nishida, Maryland secretary of the environment, said her agency has levied some $425,000 in fines against rental property owners who have failed to register their units and clean lead paint hazards. The agency has hired four new inspectors and two full-time prosecutors to handle an expected crush of new cases when a state law known as House Bill 760 goes into full effect next month.

George Transfer Inc., the Baltimore County trucking company shut down two weeks ago after being cited for hundreds of safety violations, has agreed to sell its business to an Alabama-based trucking company, a George Transfer official said yesterday.William J. Gallagher, executive vice president of George Transfer, said the tentative agreement to sell the company's customer contacts to Malone Freight Lines Inc. was spurred by the Jan. 17 shutdown ordered by federal authorities."All of the income that George Transfer gets comes from moving freight.

The Preakness will be run May 20 as scheduled, city housing officials say, if the owners of Pimlico Race Course complete the steps in a proposal given to the city this week to remedy fire-code violations at the 130-year-old Baltimore track. Housing officials, who had threatened to sue the track's owners because of the violations found a year ago, told the city Planning Commission on Thursday that their concerns were resolved after several meetings over the past two weeks. "If you comply with [these requirements]

MOSCOW -- It was the middle of another tumultuous day.One Russian region threatened to secede, three secret police officers gave a press conference to declare they were not terrorists and killers, a pensioner set himself on fire on Red Square and the first stage of a new international space station blasted off into orbit.And the nation's main television news program fell silent.Court officers serving a debt collection order yesterday had impounded the cars and trucks belonging to ORT, the main TV channel and voice of the establishment, and its cameramen were unable to cover the news.

Baltimore was added yesterday to the list of dozens of American cities and counties in which a legal assault is under way against gun manufacturers and others for alleged product-safety violations. John and Carole Price of Manchester filed a civil suit yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court seeking damages in the fatal shooting of their 13-year-old son in August 1998 by a younger boy who had found a 9 mm handgun in the Baltimore County townhouse where his father was a tenant. Though the lawsuit names as defendants the boy and his father, the gun's owner and the Fallston pawnshop where it was purchased, the Prices' attorneys focused on the gun's manufacturer, Sturm, Ruger & Co. of Southport, Conn.

A Hanover-based trucking company with a long history of safety violations — including a fatal crash in August — has been ordered off the road after federal regulators found it to be an "imminent hazard" to the public. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which oversees interstate trucks and buses, said Wednesday that Gunthers Transport LLC must cease operations immediately. The regulator alleges Gunthers failed to follow traffic safety rules, ensure its drivers were qualified and keep its trucks well-maintained.

After a 7-year-old Baltimore girl innocently flushed a public school toilet, causing it to spew scalding water that scarred her for life, state inspectors set out to answer this question: Could something like it happen again?Three months later, they say students and staff in the city schools could be at risk for another tragedy. Yet conditions are so dilapidated and disordered around the machinery that pumps hot water and heat to thousands of students that inspectors can't determine just how great that risk is.What the regulators do say, in documents and interviews, is this:In a random audit of heating and hot water systems at 42 other schools, state inspectors found painted-over controls, unsafe repairs, safety valves they couldn't reach to inspect, corrosion and leakage.

Anne Arundel County Department of Health workers inspected 134 food service establishments between Jan. 16 and Jan. 31 and found 21 critical food safety violations that were immediately corrected.They did not find violations at any of the establishments that would have warranted closing them.They found multiple violations at one place.Piezano Pizza and Restaurant, 2019 West St., Annapolis, was cited for cross-contaminating ready-to-serve foods and for not keeping food at its proper temperature.

The Anne Arundel County Department of Health briefly closed Ruby Tuesdays at 7900 Ritchie Highway because of a sewage backup.It was closed, then reopened Dec. 17.Inspectors checked 140 restaurants and other food service facilities in the county during the last two weeks of December and cited 16 for food safety violations.Ruby Tuesdays was the only place where multiple violations were noted, health officials said.In addition to the sewage disposal problem, inspectors found that food was not being held at the proper temperature.