“Whether you are grabbing a quick lunch or settling in for a fancy dinner, you want to know that the food was prepared in a kitchen that is clean and safe.” That’s how county Supervisor Joe Simitian summarized his push for a major countywide system that will eventually rate every one of the 8,000 dining places in the county and later all food trucks and caterers.

According to this editorial in the Mercury News, the San Jose area is going to adopt a Toronto-style red, yellow or green color sign in restaurant windows, and also put online the complete results of most recent inspections along with any past violations.

This significant public health program launched over the past year by the county’s Department of Environmental Health has been tested, vetted and analyzed at workshops along with a huge number of public comments. There are also on-going class sessions for restaurant operators and their staffs. And now it is ready for a rollout.

A variation of this program has been working for several years in many other jurisdictions including Sacramento, San Diego, Alameda and Los Angeles counties but our county has carefully tweaked it to fit locally. And it appears to have the support of the dining industry, according to DEH Consumer Protection Director Mike Balliett.

The three principal grades that will apply is the green card, which can be earned with a perfect inspection or nothing worse that one serious violation which was corrected immediately. The yellow placard denotes that two such violations have taken place. A red card, with a trio of serious flaws, will shut the restaurant down until corrections take place.

The website at sccgov.org/SCCDineOut will provide the food facility inspection results and also list the restaurants that have been shut down for food safety violations over the past six months.

The county’s 38 inspectors will begin using the placard and website system as they complete their regular inspections here in Milpitas and all the other cities. So the visual impact will be gradual although it will be sending important signals to all the other food service operations. In addition to restaurants, the new regulatory system covers markets, bakeries, liquor stores, bars, farmers’ markets, food services at fairs and festivals, ice cream and hot dog carts, food trucks, produce trucks and food vending machines.