Doral: Shape Lovers can’t reopen until repairs made after 11 employees sickened by carbon monoxide

Doral code compliance officers have inspected the diet food-delivery company that was shut down Sunday due to an excess of carbon monoxide.

City spokesman Evan Owen said inspectors toured Shape Lovers, located at at 5485 NW 79th Ave., on Monday morning. They discovered the bearings were burned out in the broken exhaust fan that employees reported Sunday morning.

The broken fan was noisy, so an employee shut it off at the beginning of the Sunday workday. The exhaust fan not only cleared the room of smoke, but also the carbon monoxide emitted from the fossil fuel burning kitchen appliances.

Without ventilation, carbon monoxide filled the enclosed commercial kitchen. Eleven employees were hospitalized with symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. All have since been released.

After the incident, Doral code compliance officers declared the space “unfit for human habitation” and banned employees from the space until it was inspected and declared safe.

“Once the owners have completed the repairs and submit testing data, code compliance will confirm the repairs and they will be able to open for business,” Owen said.

Shape Lovers has not responded to multiple messages asking for comment, and its answering machine plays a statement, then disconnects.

“As you may have heard, due to an inadvertent incident in our facility we have had to temporarily close our plant in Doral. We hope to resume normal business operations as soon as possible. Thank you for your loyalty.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2016 at 9:48 PM with the headline "Doral: Shape Lovers can’t reopen until repairs made after 11 employees sickened by carbon monoxide."