Orange County Grand Jury
• 2007-2008
• Agency Response
Restaurant Thomas G. Mauk County Executive Officer Inspections: What No One Is Telling You*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 2 findings
F1
Orange County Grading System: The present procedure of posting eight inch square cards at local restaurants, stating that they are in substantial compliance with California food safety and sanitation standards, is inadequate to inform the general public of the true sanitary condition of a restaurant. Disagrees wholly with the finding. Response: The system of public notification of restaurant inspection results is much broader than stated by the Grand Jury. The restaurant inspection seal is just one element of that system. The public can access detailed information about restaurant inspection results on the Health Care Agency's www.ocfoodinfo.com website. The website includes information about the most recent inspection, detailed information about previous inspections to provide a historical perspective of compliance with the State's Health and Safety Code, information regarding closures and other legal actions and information regarding follow up re-inspections. During calendar year 2007, the www.ocfoodinfo.com website averaged over 3,600 unique visitors every month, with over 22% of those visitors using the site more than once in a given month. At the restaurant, diners may also request to see a copy of the facility's most recent inspection report, again providing detailed information on the nature of any violations noted during the last inspection.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
Adopt a New Grading System: Adopt a new grading procedure for restaurant inspections that provides accurate and easily understood on-site health information for all restaurant and food vending locations. *~ . . The recommendation requires further analysis. Response: The Orange County Health Care Agency will provide the Board of Supervisors with a report for the Board's consideration on the available public notification options for food facility inspection results
F2
Other Grading System: Neighboring counties in Southern California and elsewhere have adopted a grading system that is superior in informing the public about the safety of their local restaurants. Disagrees wholly with the finding. Response: Other counties in Southern California have not adopted a single grading system but instead have adopted a variety of grading systems from county to county. Unless a diner is familiar with the specifics of the grading system used in a county, it may be difficult to determine what a specific letter grade means and how many violations or the nature of specific major or minor violations a restaurant may have had during their most recent inspection. Response to Recommendations
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
ABC Grading System: Implement an ABC grading system similar to the one presently in use in Los Angeles and neighboring counties. The recommendation requires further analysis. Response: The Orange County Health Care Agency will provide the Board of Supervisors with a report for the Board's consideration on the available public notification options for food facility inspection results by November 1, 2008. .
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.