[Update below] New York's restaurant inspection system has been criticized for being unfairly punitive since its controversial inception under the Bloomberg administration. Even though fines have been dramatically reduced and the system altered to be more equitable, restaurant owners are still struggling with poor grades, which can severely impact their business.
That's why it's surprising to learn that city health inspectors seem to rather give a restaurant an "A" grade if the score hovers close to the 13 points or less needed to obtain that letter. On his data-heavy blog, Pratt City & Regional Planning faculty member Ben Wellington studies grading data since the program's beginnings in 2010 and finds that three times as many restaurants received a score of 13 than a score of 14, which would have earned them a "B" grade. Wellington surmises that inspectors must be using "discretion" when issuing their final tally of violations.
Much like a teacher might boost a student's final grade when taking other factors (attendance, participation, effort, etc.) into consideration, Wellington believes inspectors are "turning a blind eye towards that last violation that would put a restaurant over the edge." He also provides some compelling data that shows how often this appears to happen.
To determine how often scores seem to be adjusted, I assumed that if all were fair there should be a fairly flat count between 12 and 16, namely about 7,200 inspections should fall within each of these score buckets. (7,200 was chosen based on drawing a smooth curve in the histogram.) If that’s the case, there should be about 21,600 inspections graded B in that range , split between 14,15 and 16. (7,200 x 3). In fact, there were only 13,029, about 40% lower count than expected. And we can see on the graph exactly where those restaurants ended up: They are A’s with 12 and 13.
Businesses have bad days from time to time and if an inspection happens to occur when a restaurant fridge has just conked out, for example, shouldn't there be some leniency instead of slapping them with a failing grade on the spot? Wellington suggests that in that case, grading should be easier across the board and that inspections should be standardized such that there's no "randomness in the process."
Almost half of NYC restaurants earned an "A" grade last year and under the DOH's new guidelines, restaurants scoring an "A" on their initial inspections don't have to pay fees associated with violations. This means the agency could be missing out on big bucks if inspectors are letting violations slip for the sake of a good grade.
We reached out to the Department of Health to ask whether inspectors were instructed to offer leniency on a case-by-case basis and if they have the discretion to award a restaurant a "better" grade if violations are considered less egregious. We'll update when we hear back.
Update: The Health Department responded to our request for comment with the following statement:
The Health Department’s restaurant grading program was designed to improve sanitary conditions and food safety practices, reduce illnesses associated with dining out, and inform the public about a restaurant’s inspection results. Inspectors are not instructed to offer leniency, just to cite what they see. The final score is based on the extent of the violations that the inspector observes.
