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You wouldn’t eat at a restaurant not inspected by the Health Department, but a new state law exempts all child care centers from kitchen inspections. And the new law is creating problems for early head start centers which must provide two meals a day for low income children and it is keeping at least one center from opening.

The glasses are neatly stacked. The blue bowls are clean and ready to be used. But this kitchen is bare. The newly renovated Early Head Start Center for low income children in Tallahassee is sitting empty because of a SNAFU over the lack of government regulation.

In a nutshell, the federal government requires this kitchen be inspected so it can open, but the state no longer has the authority.

The center is funded with stimulus money, meant to create jobs. Director Pam Davis says the 1.1 million dollar impact on the community is being lost because the federal government requires a working kitchen and the state is no longer allowed to inspect child care center kitchens at all.

“In order to get the grant and provide the meals that meet two-thirds of a child’s daily nutritional requirements, I have to have my kitchen inspected and there’s no one to inspect it,” Davis said.

House Bill 5311 took effect July first. It prohibits the state Department of Health from inspecting not just this center, but all child care center kitchens in Florida, in both new and already operating centers. Davis says parents should be concerned.

“The fact that no one is going to be out inspecting these kitchens that are in child care centers and schools and nursing homes, that concerns me as a citizen,” Davis said. “I think that’s a public health hazard.”

Asked about the new law, a Heath Department spokesperson would only say the agency’s job is to carry out the will of the legislature.

Multiple state officials are meeting in Pensacola today on the issue and looking for ways to allow the inspections to occur, but it will take legislative action to remedy the problem.