One of the biggest issues facing the restaurant industry is whether restaurateurs will be required to display letter grades ”“ indicating the score received on their most recent health inspection ”“ in their windows. Legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin and Sen. Jeff Klein has passed the Senate and is before the Assembly Health Committees.
The New York State Restaurant Association (NYSRA) and its members believe food safety is of the utmost importance and take steps every day to educate members and workers about proper food handling techniques. NYSRA holds ServSafe training classes throughout the state to educate members, offers products and materials to train employees and has even lobbied in favor of mandatory foodhandler certifications to better protect its members, the industry and the customers.
NYSRA”™s concerns about this letter-grading legislation lie with the assumption that letter grades are associated with improved compliance by restaurants and will lead to a decline in foodborne illness. NYSRA believes educating operators, rather than fining or publicly humiliating them, is a better course of action.
The idea of using letter grades for restaurant inspections is not widely accepted as a means to improve cleanliness or as an inspection method at all. In 1993, the Food and Drug Administration removed scoring from the model food code citing problems with the system.
As recently as 2008, the FDA was asking for research to evaluate and assess scoring methodologies. The national trend among the majority of public health professionals generally has been to avoid the use of scores or grades, which are considered to be misleading and inaccurate.
In a 2004 study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it was concluded after studying more than 167,000 restaurant inspection reports, that there was no difference in average letter grades given to restaurants experiencing outbreaks compared to those that were not. Moreover, the study found that where letter grades are used, none of the most commonly cited violations were actual “risk factors” for foodborne illness. The most commonly cited item was improper storage of cleaning items stored next to packaged foods.
The most commonly cited example of letter-grading success is Los Angeles, but letter grading is only half of the story. It is also worth noting that mandatory foodhandler certification was also adopted in Los Angeles at the same time as letter grading. This fact coupled with an emphasis on education by the county Health Department must have had a positive effect on decreasing foodborne illness.
In the 12 years since it was started in Los Angeles, you can count on your hands the number of local or state jurisdictions that have joined in. Wichita, Kan., tried letter grading but dropped it in 2003, calling the process “misleading.” Orange and Sacramento counties considered it but said no.
Richard Sanchez, Orange County”™s director of environmental health, said another reason the county”™s board of supervisors decided on the pass/fail system as opposed to letter grades was because “there is no proven correlation between health and posting placards.”
Not to mention that it was considered and rejected by the New York City Council in 1998 as well as in Westchester County in 2001.
Currently, this legislation is pending in the New York State Assembly. While NYSRA applauds our elected officials”™ efforts to provide consumers with more information, we hope they will consider providing consumers with real information, such as the actual inspection report, instead of just a letter in the window.
Rich Stytzer is state board member and immediate past president of the Westchester/Rockland Chapter of the New York Restaurant Association, vice president of Antun”™s of Westchester Catering in Elmsford and a member of The Business Council of Westchester. Reach him at rich@antunsofwestchester.com.
