Tag Archives: Orange County

Too cool for disclosure? Orange County votes against restaurant grades but vote for more inspections, higher fees

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Inspections and disclosure do not make safe restaurants.

Restaurants make safe restaurants.

Orange-County-LogoInspection and disclosure are minimal tools to hold folks accountable.

The bare minimum.

So comparing one against the other seems kinda, dumb.

Orange County will remain the only Southern California county not using letter grades for restaurant health inspections after the Board of Supervisors voted against them Tuesday.

But local restaurants will be inspected more often following the board’s approval of fee increases for owners and operators to pay for more inspectors, despite twice rejecting the hikes last year.

Under the new rules, county health officials will inspect restaurants at least three times a year. Currently, inspectors are able to visit local restaurants, on average, 1.6 times a year. Federal guidelines suggest most restaurants should be inspected no fewer than three times a year.

“It’s really important to have these restaurants inspected on a regular basis,” said Supervisor Lisa Bartlett.

Supervisors voted 4-1 against putting letter grades on restaurant windows, a method of alerting potential customers about the outcome of health inspections used in most of the region.

“It’s not a letter grade … that makes the restaurant safe. It’s the quality and frequency of the inspections,” Jim Miller, president of the Dana Point Harbor Merchants Association – which includes 14 restaurants in Dana Point Harbor – told the supervisors.

California county to continue debating color-coded food safety inspections

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In the on-going saga that is restaurant inspection disclosure, this time in Orange County, California, a grand jury report has caused a reevaluation of the process among public health officials.

Restaurants in Orange County currently use a food inspection notification system that is visibly vague and, at a glance, does not inform the public about inspection status, as stated in the report.

OC.color.gradesThe report calls for a pronounced placard in the windows of these food facilities that is “graphically enhanced” and leaves no room for misinterpretation.

One of the alternative approaches would be a color-coded system, which designates a green, yellow or red placard, similar to traffic lights, indicating their level of compliance.

The counties of Sacramento, Alameda and Merced currently use this color notification method.

The color-coded system would be more effective than the one currently in use, said 
Christopher Waldrop, the director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America.

The neighboring counties of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego all use a letter-grade format for food facility health inspections. Either an A, B or C grade can be earned during the inspection.

But Waldrop said there has not been sufficient research done yet to come to a consensus of which system is the most effective.

“I think at this stage there is a lot of different systems that are being tried,” Waldrop said. “Whichever system it is, the one that gives consumers accurate information that’s very readily available, those types of systems are the ones that work best for consumers.”

Grand jury green lights color-coded inspection system for Orange County eateries

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Eleven years after Toronto came up with the red-yellow-green restaurant inspection grading system, an Orange County, California, grand jury on Thursday recommended the county adopt a health inspection system with green, yellow and red placards, instead of letter grades, to inform customers whether food-service establishments are complying with the health code.

The county is the only one among its neighbors without a letter-grade system, and Thursday’s report was the latest attempt to give consumers OC.color.gradeseasily recognizable information. Previous tries here met opposition from the restaurant industry, but this time may be different, officials say.

The Board of Supervisors has three months to respond to the recommendations.

“I’m not trying to put restaurants out of business,” said Supervisor John Moorlach, who recommended a similar system in 2008, “but I want to make sure they’re doing their best to get a good green tag in the window.”

Patrons can get a copy of the restaurant’s latest inspection report online (ocfoodinfo.com) or if they ask for it at the restaurant, but hardly anybody does, said Russ Bendel, the owner of Vine Restaurant in San Clemente.

Colored signs “definitely will help guests choose where they want to go if they have multiple options,” he said.

The grand jury recommends using the same three categories as today, but coloring them like traffic signals. This is “a more practical approach” than letter grades, the report says, without the “disruption and burden” and expense.

“Improving the visibility of the current unremarkable graphic to a more distinctive image is an overdue step forward,” the report says.

It criticized other counties for “operating without any conformity” in their letter grades – for weighing certain infractions differently.