NYC restaurants must show health inspection grades

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For the first time, the New York City Board of Health voted Tuesday to rate cleanliness in the city’s 25,648 food-service establishments with publicly posted letter grades, adopting a controversial plan proposed 14 months ago by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.



In a 6-to-2 vote, with one abstention, the board compelled restaurateurs to post inspectors’ numerical ratings that were previously available only at the department or online. In a program that is to start in July, 8-by-10-inch placards, to be supplied by the city, will rate restaurants with a blue A for the highest grade (from zero to 13 points under the old system), a green B for a less-sanitary but still passing rating (from 13 to 27 points), and a yellow C for a failing grade. They are to be prominently posted in windows or restaurant vestibules.

“Giving consumers more information will help make our restaurants safer and cleaner,” said the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley.

At a hearing in February, many restaurateurs opposed the plan.

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.”

NY Times

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