Brad A. Johnson of the Orange County Register in California was planning to review a restaurant in Newport Beach this week. Instead, he got food poisoning there. Everyone at his table got sick. Unspeakably sick. For days. It was awful.

As the sickness intensified, Johnson went online and looked up health inspection reports for the restaurant. Inspections are a matter of public record, but nobody ever looks at them. This place has received a serious violation on every one of its inspections since opening two years ago. Coincidence?

Johnson  writes, If this restaurant had opened in Los Angeles instead of Newport Beach, it would have to display a letter grade of C, or possibly B, in the front window – and I never would have dined there. But because it is in Orange County, there’s no indication whatsoever that this place has been cited repeatedly for problems that pose very serious and immediate health risks to its customers.

It’s time to restart the debate about letter grades for restaurant health inspections in Orange County.

I’ve been reviewing restaurants in Orange County for a little more than a year now, and I’ve been poisoned on four separate occasions. This most recent case was by far the worst.

I worked as a restaurant critic in Los Angeles for 10 years. I always made a point of not reviewing restaurants with a grade lower than A. And I got sick only twice. Another coincidence?

Restaurants in Orange County are allowed to repeatedly fail their inspections without any consequences. They can “fix” the problem – but not the underlying behavior or lackadaisical mentality – and be back in business in a matter of minutes. Even in instances where the health department shuts down a restaurant and revokes its permit, the restaurant can go buy a new one and be right back in business, sometimes the same day.

The placards currently displayed in restaurant windows in Orange County are useless. A restaurant might pass inspection by the skin of its teeth, with serious repeat violations, yet it gets the exact same placard as a restaurant that receives a near-perfect score. That’s messed up. That’s why I got sick.

In 2008, Orange County came close to adapting a letter-grade system similar to the ones used effectively in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Riverside, New York, Philadelphia and many other places. The Orange County Grand Jury looked into the matter and, after hearing extensive testimony from consumers and restaurateurs, strongly recommended adapting a letter-grade or color-coded system that would give consumers a clearer picture of every restaurant’s health score. County health inspectors backed the idea. This paper wrote extensively about the process and determined that if Orange County were to institute a letter-grade system, roughly 40 percent of the restaurants here would fail to score an A.

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, the Allegheny County Health Department soon will roll out the A, B, C and Ds of a new restaurant grading program, officials said.

Critics, though, worry that a letter grade could misinform diners and unfairly hurt businesses.