Serving Abalone

May 7, 2009

Question:I am the office manager of a San Francisco Bay area restaurant. A customer called asking if they could bring abalone into the restaurant for us to prepare and cook for them and their friends. We are not sure whether this is permissible or not. What are the laws regarding preparing a customer’s abalone in our restaurant? (John P.)

Answer: Yes, it is legal to prepare and serve abalone provided by your customers, but only under certain conditions. The person who legally harvested the abalone (under the authority of their California sport fishing license) may take their abalone into a restaurant for cooking by the restaurant staff as long as they remain present while it is prepared and served to them and their friends. If the person with the abalone must leave briefly while the abalone are being prepared, they must tag the abalone with a signed statement that includes their name, address, telephone number, the date taken and the total number of abalone belonging to them. Also important, each person bringing abalone to your restaurant for preparation may only legally provide three abalone each (FGC Section 2015).

There is no way that as a restaurant you should ever offer to do this for anyone. Ever.

LOL ^^

There is no way that as a restaurant you should ever offer to do this for anyone. Ever.

If no laws are being broken, why not? 

There is no way that as a restaurant you should ever offer to do this for anyone. Ever.

If no laws are being broken, why not?

+1

I know plenty of people who take their fish to restaurants to have the restaurant prepare it for them.

Unless you're worry is of some kind of cross-contamination from wild fish.

There is no way that as a restaurant you should ever offer to do this for anyone. Ever.

If no laws are being broken, why not? 

Limited upside. One false step, one tag that gets lost, and it's five figure fines. Not to mention opening your entire restaurant to inspection by DFG whenever they feel like it. Abalone and abalone poaching are such high profile high dollar enforcement issues and with so many pitfalls for the unwary you'd have to be nuts to allow it, legal or not.

There is no way that as a restaurant you should ever offer to do this for anyone. Ever.

If no laws are being broken, why not?

+1

I know plenty of people who take their fish to restaurants to have the restaurant prepare it for them.

Unless you're worry is of some kind of cross-contamination from wild fish.

I'm only talking about abalone.

There is no way that as a restaurant you should ever offer to do this for anyone. Ever.

If no laws are being broken, why not? 

Limited upside. One false step, one tag that gets lost, and it's five figure fines. Not to mention opening your entire restaurant to inspection by DFG whenever they feel like it. Abalone and abalone poaching are such high profile high dollar enforcement issues and with so many pitfalls for the unwary you'd have to be nuts to allow it, legal or not.

Maybe I'm just nuts but but that seems like a lot of unlikely hypothetical downside. 

Seems like anyone with common sense and file cabinet outta be able to keep out of trouble.  Even with lost tags the burden of proof would lie on the dfg to prove their was wrongdoing.  Even in normal poaching cases involving commercial sales and restaurants the dfg doesn't move until they have mountains of evidence and surveillance proving that you were committing the alleged crime.

I can't imagine they have the budget or desire to do more anything more than an inquiry. After they find that you have your stuff in order, they'd have to have real evidence or a real hard on for you in order to press you further.