Ventura Grand Jury backs letter-grade ratings for eateries

'A' would be top cleanliness ranking, report says

By Lisa McKinnon (Contact)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Critics have many ways to rate a restaurant: stars, forks and long rants on Internet review sites like yelp.com.

But in a report issued Tuesday, the Ventura County Grand Jury made clear its preference for letter-grade placards like the ones seen in the windows of minimarts, coffeehouses and white-tablecloth eateries in Los Angeles County.

Titled “Is Your Favorite Restaurant Clean?” the grand jury report touts letter grades, with “A” being the best and “C” being sketchy enough to warrant a reinspection within 30 days. The report says letter grades would be an improvement over the pass-fail certification process now used by the Ventura County Environmental Health Division.

“An individual faced with the choice of, ‘Jeez, do I want to go to an A or a B restaurant?’ is probably going to go with the A. It forces restaurant owners to do a better job,” Grand Jury Foreman Ron Zenone said.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors has 60 days to respond to the Grand Jury’s recommendation, which includes suggesting that environmental health personnel start issuing “conditional” rather than “passed” certificates to restaurants that require reinspection.

A similar proposal failed to pass a Board of Supervisors vote in 1998 amid concerns that switching to a letter-grade system would require raising food-service permit fees by as much as 93 percent to cover the cost of hiring additional inspectors and purchasing new computers and software.

The environmental health division instead implemented a tiered system that increased from one to three the number of times restaurants in Ventura County are inspected each year.

In contrast, liquor stores, snack bars and other sites that serve prepackaged foods are inspected at least once a year, said Elizabeth Huff, manager of the division’s community services section.

“There are a number of approaches, including the ones we use, to get information out to the public,” said Huff. “San Diego has been using grades for its restaurants since the late 1940s. If that was the absolute answer to food safety, every county in California would be grading. But grades don’t include dates, for example.”

They are, however, immediately recognizable.

“I always look at the letter grade when I’m eating in L.A.,” said Mike Muirhead, executive chef and co-owner of Safire American Bistro in Camarillo. “If something were a C, you bet I would think twice about eating there.”

On the Net: The grand jury report is at http://grandjury.countyofventura.org/reports.html.

Inspection results are posted at http://www.ventura.org/rma/envhealth.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/jun/24/grand-jury-backs-letter-grade-ratings-for/