At a press conference yesterday, City Council speaker Christine Quinn said she heard so many complaints from city restaurateurs about unreasonable inspectors and high fines that she set up an anonymous survey to find out how the food service industry really felt about the new grading system. The feedback wasn't pretty, which comes as no surprise if you've talked to a restaurant or bar owner recently. Of the nearly 1300 restaurateurs who responded, 65.9 percent rated the letter grading system a 1 out of 5—poor—while only 14.4 percent ranked the system above fair. And almost 60 percent of the restaurateurs who scored a coveted A grade rated the system "poor" as well. So much for the teachers' pets!
Restaurateurs and survey participants complained that while the new grading system might generate more revenue for the restaurant business overall, keeping up with the DOH's rules and regulations is financially burdensome. 68 percent of those surveyed said the letter grading system increased the cost of operations significantly, with heavy fines, pricey consultants and other improvements becoming de rigueur for those in the business. Quinn warned that the Health Department's overzealousness could severely hinder the city's dining industry and called for reform.
"The system has to be designed in a balanced way that protects the public's health, but doesn't protect the public's health in a way that is so financially punitive that it puts the future of restaurants at risk," Quinn said. "The survey responses indicate that there is a deep disconnect between the Department of Health and many restaurateurs."
Sushi Yasuda owner Scott Rosenberg and Dallas BBQ/Tony Di Napoli mogul Herb Wetanson were also on hand to call attention to inconsistencies with the inspection practices. Rosenberg told reporters, "The process by and large has been inconsistent and arbitrary, and has even been adversarial," and recalled an incident in which an inspector threw $10,000 worth of sushi-grade tuna in the garbage and even poured bleach over it—all because chefs were not using gloves. "Any sushi chef worth his or her soy sauce will use bare hands for making sushi," Roseberg declared.
Wetanson, who has been in the restaurant industry for over 60 years, said the current DOH practices make restaurateurs feel like criminals. "The DOH must adopt the philosophy that we're on the same team," said Wetanson. "When they come into my restaurant, there's fear in the restaurant. Even though we're A's. There's fear, and they want to generate that…These people come into our premises as enemies, not as friends, not correcting us…they want to catch you, and that makes money for the city. These people come into our premises as enemies." (Immediately following the press conference, the Dallas BBQ at 23rd and 8th received an inspection and was awarded 0 points, according to the chain's publicist.)
When asked about Mayor Bloomberg's recent comment that complaints about the letter grading system would fall on deaf ears, Quinn was nonchalant. "We're not complaining, so it's irrelevant to what the mayor says," she said. See, she's no puppet!
And in today's Times, Stamford professor Daniel E. Ho wrote an op-ed discussing the findings of a study of more than 500,000 inspections of more than 100,000 restaurants in cities across the countries. According to his research, NYC performed worst out of all nine jurisdictions, failing to maintain a clear process for tallying violations and consistency of inspections. Ho writes:
A second, and perhaps more disconcerting, flaw of the inspection system goes beyond whether the grades themselves offer useful information. Grading appears to shift inspection resources away from the worst offenders. Previously, the Health Department would follow up with restaurants posing the greatest risks — those now in the C range. Although the department still conducts some of these inspections, the grading system introduced a new type of inspection for the purpose of resolving a restaurant’s grade.
Roughly a week to a month after an initial inspection that does not result in an A, restaurants are reinspected for re-grading. In the first year and a half of the grading system, some 14,000 inspections have been devoted to grade resolution for B-range restaurants. And that diverts attention from the most delinquent.
Asked about all the hubbub yesterday, a Health Department spokesperson said, "We welcome restaurants’ suggestions for improving the inspection and grading program, and in fact restaurant owners played an important role in helping us devise the system. But the Council's survey was actually an online complaint box, not a representative sample of opinion. An independent Baruch College survey of New Yorkers found 91 percent approve of grading and 88 percent consider grades when dining out. With 72 percent of the city’s restaurants getting As, more and more restaurants are getting cleaner and cleaner, and the public's health is better for it."
