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amNewYork features State Senator Jeff Klein's letter grading idea for restaurants on its cover. In the wake of the media capturing rats running around a KFC-Taco Bell that had just passed a health inspection, the Health Department has been under fire.
Klein thinks seeing a letter grade and having it posted prominently for prospective diners to see would be much more helpful than the current system. Klein said, ""Having a letter grade posted for all diners to see will provide a real incentive for dirty restaurants to clean up their acts. I can't imagine anyone wanting to eat an establishment with an 'F' hanging in the doorway." But what about those thrill-seeking delinquent diners?
Anyway, the Health Department told AMNY, "A grading system for restaurants does not accurately depict the cleanliness of a restaurant over time. Our system lets New Yorkers see the actual list of violations and decide whether they want to eat at a particular restaurant. And our scoring system weighs more heavily those violations that are most likely to make a customer sick."
Well, it's not like Klein is telling the Health Department to lose the awesome Restaurant Inspection Results online. But we don't think a straight letter grade is very clear. Maybe there needs to be a simple three-part system showing diners how the restaurant scores in certain areas: Food handling, Overall cleanliness, and Overall facility maintenance, maybe.
The Health Department already issues Golden Apples to restaurant that are super clean - no "critical violations and have four or fewer general violations (totaling no more than eight 'points') during their past two annual inspections."
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L.A. does this and the result is that everyone is forced to work for an A. I don't see how it could be a bad thing to implement here. Restaurants already get scores after inspections, all the DoH would have to do is come up with letters to go along with the score.
Yeah it works really well in LA. Here in NYC the D.O.H.M.H. DOES score each restuarant, but you have to navigate their busy website to find it. With this system all you have to do is walk by your favorite restaurant and look at the grade then look at the menu.
Great idea.
las vegas does this as well and its very helpful... even though i still get burritos at mexican places with C's whenever i'm there.