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-1072896682Cleanlink News 3/19/2010
NY Restaurants Must Post Cleanliness Grades
The New York City Board of Health voted to rate cleanliness in the city’s more than 24,000 restaurants with publicly posted letter grades, adopting a controversial plan proposed 14 months ago by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, reports The New York Times online edition.
In a 6-to-2 vote, with one abstention, the board decided to compel restaurateurs to post inspectors’ numerical ratings, previously available only at the department or online at nyc.gov/health. And in a program that is to start in July, 8-inch by 10-inch, city-supplied placards will be used to rate restaurants with a blue A for the highest grade (from 0 to 13 points under the old system), a green B for a less sanitary but still passing rating (13 to 27 points), and a yellow C for a failing grade (28 points or more).
The signs will be dated, and are to be prominently posted in windows or restaurant vestibules.
"After the vote, Robert Bookman, legislative counsel for the New York City chapters of the New York State Restaurant Association—the operators’ trade group—charged that 'letter grading will be more misleading than helpful,' adding that 'it will be unfair and a black eye to this industry in the restaurant capital of the word.'"
Bookman said that a legal challenge to the board’s vote “is an option,” noting that the mandated posting against the wishes of a restaurant owner raised free-speech issues. Another challenge could be mounted, he said, on the question of whether such a regulation should be considered by the City Council rather than the Board of Health.
If the grade is lower than an A, the restaurant can wait until a second review by a different inspector within a month for a possible letter grade. If an operator contests the grade, the restaurant can post a “grade pending” sign until management can present its case before a judge at a health department administrative tribunal.
The restaurant association had lobbied the health department to exempt all nonfood-related violations, such as burned-out light bulbs and leaky faucets, from the letter-grade calculation, and the department agreed to exclude many of these types of issues from the grade, The Times said.
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