Posted directly above the uniformed cashier at the Martinez Taco Bell is a laminated sign that reads, in bold black letters, “This facility is inspected by the local environmental health agency. A copy of the most recent environmental health inspection report is available here for review upon request.”
Feeling emboldened by this pledge, I decide to exercise my rights as a diner.
Local health departments follow up on complaints from diners. Credits: Chip Simons Inspectors cited this Martinez restaurant for an infestation of rats. Credits: Mark Gartland Contra Costa County charged Sbarro $22,500 for health violations, but it also failed to inspect the chain’s Concord restaurant during one 29-month stretch. Credits: Mark Gartland
“Can I see a copy of your latest health-inspection report?” I ask the young cashier.
“Huh?” he responds, screwing up his face with a befuddled grimace.
I point to the sign above his head. “The latest inspection report. Your sign here says I can see it.”
“Hold on,” the cashier says. Then he disappears behind the food prep area.
Two minutes later, a duty supervisor clad in full Taco Bell regalia appears from the back and asks what I’m looking for. Once again I point to the laminated sign. Then, to the obvious annoyance of the woman behind me, who probably has a hot lunch date with a Chalupa, the supervisor disappears for a few minutes. Finally, she emerges from the back carrying a clear plastic pouch that contains some paperwork.
“Is this what you wanted?” she asks, pulling out what looks like a building permit. The document lists the restaurant’s square footage and other related numbers, and comes attached to what appear to be architectural blueprints that could have been crafted by Mike Brady himself.
Of course, I know this is not the restaurant’s most recent health-inspection report because I’ve already seen its most recent inspection — not to mention the ten reports before that. I know, for instance, that the April 26 report says the inspector found a rat dropping in a drawer on the food prep line. And I know that’s not nearly as bad as the rat infestation an inspector found earlier in the year after someone complained about finding a rat turd in her Grilled Stuft Burrito.
“This doesn’t look like a health-inspection report,” I say.
By now, the supervisor is openly suspicious of me.
“Do you have a problem with my facility?” she asks.
Rather than risk the wrath of an ever-growing line of hungry patrons, I abruptly thank her and cut short my first attempt to flex my rights as a burrito buyer.
Since January 1, 2001, restaurants have been required by state law to show interested customers their most recent health-inspection report. It’s a relatively toothless public-disclosure law that few consumers and even few restaurateurs know about, the result of a political compromise worked out between state Senator Byron Sher and the California Restaurant Association a couple of years ago. Industry lobbyists hoped it would put an end to the crazy talk about requiring local health agencies around the state to post inspection reports on the Internet. Governors Pete Wilson and Gray Davis vetoed Internet disclosure legislation in 1998 and 1999, bowing to industry opposition.
However, the law didn’t preclude local agencies from posting restaurant inspections on the Internet. And by the time the final watered-down bill got passed, bureaucratic inertia had already set in. Fully expecting a state mandate, local environmental health directors began planning to, ahem, beef up their Internet operations. Now, county health agencies around the state, including those of San Francisco, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties, are posting inspections online. And guess what, East Bay dining connoisseurs? Alameda and Contra Costa counties and the city of Berkeley are all planning to launch their own food-inspection Web sites in the next few months. Inspection information that once could only be obtained via time-consuming Public Records Act requests will now be only a click away.
But while the new inspection-report Web sites will give consumers plenty of information about their favorite restaurants, they won’t say much about the priorities of the agencies that conduct those inspections. And when it comes to restaurant regulation, you practically need a dining guide, because the standards and methods of local health inspectors are all over the menu.
Eating out is a way of life in the East Bay. Yet along with the pleasures of eating out come the occasional health risks. According to the Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 76 million people a year suffer food-borne illnesses, causing 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. Health officials say most cases go unreported, but restaurants, delis, and cafeterias were the largest sources of food poisoning in a CDC study. Here in the East Bay, during the 2001-2002 fiscal year there were approximately 460 food poisoning complaints made to local environmental health agencies. This is why we need vigilant health inspectors to protect us. So how well are our three East Bay environmental health jurisdictions — Berkeley, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties — protecting us from getting sick?
There’s good news and bad news. The good news: You’re safe most every time you go out and eat in the East Bay. The bad news: Dozens of East Bay restaurants with serious health violations — from vermin infestations to repeatedly leaving perishable meats at bacteria-friendly room temperatures — are open for business right now. Additionally, although East Bay health departments typically set a goal of inspecting restaurants three to four times a year, restaurants often operate without inspection for more than a year at a time. The reasons for these truths vary because, again, standards and enforcement philosophies differ from agency to agency.
First, there’s the city of Berkeley, one of only three cities in the state with its own health department. Having a smaller territory to cover than its county counterparts, Berkeley’s food-safety inspectors conducted an average of 3.25 inspections per food facility during the past fiscal year — roughly three times the inspection rate of Alameda and Contra Costa counties. City health officials say this blanket coverage has helped Berkeley keep a verified food-borne illness outbreak from occurring in at least seven years.
“We do routine inspections like clockwork,” boasts Alex Schnieder, Berkeley’s environmental health director. “When you have people regularly out there monitoring, you don’t have people backsliding. … That keeps down the number of complaints and the need for administrative hearings.”
Administrative hearings are pseudo-enforcement proceedings, where restaurant owners are hauled in for a meeting with city health officials and warned to get their act together. But Berkeley rarely ever goes so far as to engage in such hand-slapping. Schnieder and his staff strongly prefer not to shut any place down. In fact, he says his department hasn’t revoked a permit since the late ’80s.
And that’s the trade-off in Berkeley — inspectors routinely check the practices of restaurant operators, but they let repeat violators keep their doors open. Instead of closing places down even temporarily, Berkeley uses the more benevolent enforcement tool known to health bureaucrats as a “chargeable reinspection.” These are follow-up visits from the health inspector deemed necessary by a restaurant’s unsafe conditions during the original inspection. Berkeley currently charges $104 an hour for these follow-ups, and Schnieder says they are usually enough to bring a scofflaw back into compliance — which is, he notes, the inspection program’s ultimate goal.
This sounds nice in theory, but it’s not always so effective in practice. Consider the case of Ichiban Japanese Restaurant in downtown Berkeley. Over the past two years, Berkeley health inspectors have made six chargeable reinspections of Ichiban. During that time, inspectors have repeatedly documented the restaurant’s problems with rats, sloppy food-storage practices, and employees not washing their hands properly.
On August 9, 2001, a disgusted Ichiban customer called the Berkeley environmental health division to complain that she heard rats running across the beam over the sushi bar. Inspector Patrick Kaulback concluded that the complainant’s concerns were valid: “Eliminate evidence of rat activity in dry storage areas,” Kaulback instructed in his report. “Several old rat droppings observed on floors and shelves. … Wash, rinse, and sanitize surfaces where rat droppings found.” Four days later, Kaulback deemed that “reasonable compliance” had been achieved at Ichiban and advised owner Zhiqiang Liu to keep the place clean. On February 20 of this year, inspector Jay Ogden again found the place dirty and admonished Liu, who refused to comment for this story, to patch a hole in the wall by a walk-in refrigerator where rats could get in. Two weeks later, during a chargeable reinspection, he deemed Ichiban to be in full compliance. Then, on August 16, he returned to find rat droppings in the food-storage areas and numerous mouse holes in the walls. When Ogden came back five days later, all the holes had been plugged, and he concluded that the facility was once again in “full compliance.” He warned in his report that if “rodent activity” or rodent droppings were observed during any future inspection, “you may be closed immediately.” But given the city’s long record of compromise, not closure, this is highly unlikely.
While Berkeley stresses prevention over punishment, Contra Costa County’s environmental health division is the flip side of the burger. In the past fiscal year alone, Contra Costa health inspectors have revoked one restaurateur’s permit (unheard of in Berkeley or Alameda County), suspended 16 others, temporarily closed down 43 places, and conducted more than 50 administrative enforcement hearings. It’s even referred one repeat scofflaw to the district attorney.
Why is Contra Costa so tough on its wayward eateries? Ken Stuart, head of Contra Costa’s environmental health division, puts it simply: “Because it works.”
Tough enforcement certainly keeps some restaurant owners on their toes. One owner, who asked not to be named, just laughed when asked for his thoughts on the county’s health inspectors. “They’re picky,” he said.
But they’re only picky when they finally make it out to a restaurant. On average, health inspectors barely make one routine inspection for each food facility a year — and plenty can go wrong in that year. Consider this taste from the inspection file of Teriyaki #1, a Japanese- and Asian-themed fast-food restaurant in Pittsburg. On January 25, 2001, Contra Costa health officials shut Teriyaki #1 down for operating without hot water. In all, the inspector found six “major” health violations — those defined under state law as posing “an imminent risk to public health” and warranting “immediate correction” — which included overflowing trash from a Dumpster, an enticement to rodents and insects. Teriyaki #1 reopened the next day after the owners installed a new water heater. The next inspection didn’t come until fourteen months later. This time, the inspector found eight major health violations, such as beef and chicken patties being kept at dangerously lukewarm temperatures, and piles of trash out back.
The next week, the inspector shut the place down again after finding “live roaches and egg case on steam table at cookline.” Live roaches also were observed parading out of ceiling panels at the front counter. (The latest inspection report, from May 6, found no major health violations.)
Stuart acknowledges that restaurants some times do go unchecked for more than a year. To minimize the damage, he says his inspectors try to keep a close watch on repeat violators. But even establishments with a history of problems have gone without inspections for long stretches. This was certainly the case with two of Contra Costa’s two more high-profile cases: its complaints against the restaurant chains Sbarro and Chevy’s. Earlier this year, the district attorney’s office brought a civil complaint against Sbarro, an Italian-themed mall eatery with locations in Concord and Antioch, alleging unfair business practices for repeatedly keeping perishable foods at dangerously warm temperatures over a four-year period going back to 1998. According to Deputy District Attorney Steven Bolen, Sbarro has agreed to pay $22,500 in fines and fees to settle the case. But within the four-year period in question, there was a stretch of more than 29 months during which county health inspectors didn’t once visit the Concord Sbarro.
In 1999, the DA brought a similar action against Chevy’s, which resulted in $65,000 in penalties and fees. Bolen boasts that Chevy’s has since been a model corporate citizen. But has it? Health inspectors didn’t visit the Chevy’s in San Ramon for nearly eighteen months after the settlement. When inspector Libby Booth arrived on December 13, 2001, she didn’t appear to find a model of cleanliness. In fact, she found a roach infestation near an outlet in the kitchen and major temperature violations.
So much for Fresh Mex in San Ramon.
Alameda County has 6,336 food facilities to cover every year with only 26 inspectors on the payroll. On paper, the county’s goal is to inspect full-service restaurants four times a year. In reality, however, Alameda County only averages slightly better than one routine inspection a year.
Ron Browder, chief of the county’s food inspection program, concedes that this is not a good average when you’re in charge of protecting the public health. Browder blames the poor inspection rate on staffing limitations and a seemingly endless to-do list. Inspectors also must investigate all consumer complaints and suspected cases of food poisoning. His food inspectors also inspect public swimming pools. But environmental health directors around the Bay Area have the same kinds of gripes. A couple of years ago, staffing vacancies in Contra Costa County knocked its routine inspection average for restaurants below one a year. Food inspectors in Berkeley also inspect public swimming pools as well as noise and smoking complaints.
Alameda County does have the extra challenge of overseeing a county with poor, crime-ridden areas. Over the past couple of years, one of Browder’s food inspectors has been consumed by her duties for a special multiagency task force of health and building inspectors, police, and state alcohol regulators known as the Alcohol Beverage Action Team. The team’s specialty is using local government regulatory power to lean on corner liquor stores and markets associated with crime or, to put it more politely, adults behaving badly. Over the last fiscal year 24 of the 35 food-sellers inspected and given grief were liquor stores or independent markets. Yes, there’s a whiff of more than expired meat here; it smells of the tactics the feds use to prosecute Mafia capos with tax evasion when they can’t convict them for more serious crimes. Nonetheless, these places do pose a legitimate health risk, given that perishable foodstuffs are not their main product line.
One such establishment was Eden Market on East 14th Street. In February, health inspectors found a number of out-of-date packaged meats, including bologna products that had been expired since the prior December. Expired turkey, salami, and chocolate milk products also graced the store’s shelves. Within a six-month period, health officials temporarily shut down Eden and the adjacent meat market on two separate occasions.
Over the past fiscal year, the Alcohol Beverage Action Team has shut down nineteen stores, clubs, and restaurants for anywhere from one day to more than nine months. But otherwise, Alameda County doesn’t systematically track the number of food places it closes. And as in Berkeley, Alameda County health officials take a more benevolent stance toward penalizing restaurants that don’t always operate strictly to code. A Subway Sandwich in Hayward was given three “final” warnings from February 2000 to January 2001 to stop storing food and cups in the restroom or face a fine. Subway was never fined or issued a citation.
“I’ve told my staff, ‘We’re not in the business of closing people, we’re in the business of bringing people into compliance,'” Browder says. “If there weren’t any restaurants, we wouldn’t have anything to do.”
As all these examples indicate, you can see food-facility inspections are not so much a science as much as a regulatory Rorschach test reflecting the biases, limitations, and philosophies of those who conduct them. With that in mind, one can almost understand why the California Restaurant Association freaked out a few years ago about the idea of more than fifty environmental health agencies around the state posting inspection reports on the Internet based on more than fifty distinct inspection criteria.
Association spokesman Mark Martin says restaurateurs feared varying standards would confuse the public, and could unfairly make one restaurant look bad when compared to a place in a more lenient neighboring jurisdiction. There’s a statewide push now to standardize inspections from agency to agency, but judging from the eclectic approaches of the three East Bay health jurisdictions, it’s slow going.
But let’s be real here — the restaurant association also opposed posting health violations from inspection reports, because it’s bad for business when consumers know how gross some places really are. And surprise, surprise, health departments that already have started posting restaurant health violations, such as in San Mateo County, view it primarily as a way of encouraging compliance through public embarrassment. “It’s just another enforcement tool,” says Dean Peterson, head of San Mateo’s environmental health division.
For all the fuss, the Web sites already online don’t deliver narrative detail. You won’t, for example, be able to read about the woman who found rat feces in her Grilled Stuft Burrito. (Taco Bell spokeswoman Laurie Gannon says all the issues at the company’s Martinez restaurant have been corrected and the facility is in full compliance with regulations.) Check out San Francisco’s or Santa Clara County’s Web sites; they offer morsels of information rather than main courses — a bare-bones model the East Bay health agencies plan to follow, at least initially. Type in the name of a restaurant, and you’ll find out whether the inspector has cited it for any major health violations. Still, something with the heading “vermin” or “employee hygiene” or “Legal Action-Closure” still could easily scare away the faint of stomach.
Public health officials have their own doubts about how useful and how widely used these Internet sites will be. Justin Malan, executive director of the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, says local agencies posting inspection reports on the Internet are spending time and money on data entry that could be better used to pay for inspectors in the field. “From a public health perspective, I think the verdict is still out as to whether this type of public disclosure is making any difference,” says Malan. “What percentage of the public is actually going to log onto a Web site before they go down to get a taco?”
Wouldn’t it be easier for all food consumers if every food facility posted a grade from the local health inspector — as is already done in a handful of counties such as Los Angeles and San Diego? As you might expect, grading is vehemently opposed by the California Restaurant Association. But prominent public health officials also criticize the practice. Berkeley’s Schnieder is one of them. “With the grading systems, it’s just a snapshot,” he says. “If you give somebody an A one day, two days later it can fall down below that.” Schnieder predicts that Internet posting will quell future demands for grading, because it offers detailed information not obvious from a letter grade.
Los Angeles County’s trials and tribulations over the past four years bear out Schnieder’s contention that grading is no panacea. Two years into the grading program, LA health inspectors conceded that restaurants forced to close down because of sewage overflows or roach infestations were soon reopened, proudly displaying an A grade. Then there was the inspector who got busted for allegedly accepting a $200 bribe from a restaurateur in exchange for an A. What really eats grading critics is that almost everyone gets an A, rendering the system practically meaningless. Los Angeles is no exception there. According to a recent news report, for the 2000-2001 fiscal year, the last year which statistics were available, 79.5 percent of LA’s restaurants scored an A while only 0.3 percent scored below a C.
If only our public schools could boast such high marks.
Helene Blatter contributed to this article.
While the three East Bay health departments don’t have restaurant inspection info on the Internet yet, the following Bay Area places do:
Santa Clara County www.ehinfo.org
San Francisco http://www.dph.sf.ca.us/ehs/
San Mateo County http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/smc/department/home/0,3230,1954_36019,00.html
